


The Hub of the Universe

by DanteBeatrice77



Category: Rizzoli & Isles
Genre: F/F, I miss Fenway too, I miss summer and all the ball that comes with it, a love letter to baseball, sabermetrics, the one where Jane and Maura are actually just big nerds together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29472294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DanteBeatrice77/pseuds/DanteBeatrice77
Summary: A few months after Jane recovers from the shooting outside BPD, summer is in full swing in Boston - and that means all baseball, all the time. She has plans to go to a game with her brother on Bunker Hill Day, but after Frankie ditches her and their Fenway outing for a girl, can she find someone else to go with? A love letter to good old-fashioned baseball fanaticism.
Relationships: Maura Isles/Jane Rizzoli
Comments: 57
Kudos: 130





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone! I'm back with a quick, probably ten-chapter story that was born out of a lot of hours of watching old baseball games, and a lot of listening to pop punk from like 2010-2015. I'm so ready for June after this whole year of quarantine, and for me and my family, that means more baseball than we know what to do with (and listening to The Wonder Years on repeat). This story is my way of connecting to summer while I anxiously await its arrival. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it.

Jane Rizzoli threw her unmarked into park behind the gang of BPD cruisers in the midday Charlestown heat. The date, June 17th, meant the Bunker Hill Day Parade, which also meant that pretty much every beat cop in the area would be patrolling. There must have been dozens of officers milling about, some on bicycles, some on foot, all looking just as doused in sweat as she was when she jumped out of the car and trotted toward the commotion on Main Street under the blazing New England sun. But, despite the sheer number of them, she looked for just one.

Frankie.

Her brother should've been there. And of course he wasn't picking up his phone, which was why Jane had driven through city traffic and throngs of looky-loo pedestrians to find him on one of the busiest days of the year, behind only Patriots' Day and Pride. Mid-June also ended up being some of the most humid days of the year, with temperatures climbing up into the high 90s. Walking out onto the street and amongst sun-lotion lathered tourists felt like walking through a fucking jello mold.

But even when he didn't return her calls, when she could smell herself, when she could _feel_ the sweat bleeding through her salmon-colored v-neck, when she bumped into the thirtieth American flag tank top on her way to a gaggle of bike officers, her mood fought and clawed against her ego - Boston summer just couldn't be beat, and she was happy. She would have looked infinitely cooler if she were pissed, hard-edged as she maneuvered with her gun and badge through the crowd, meaning business, but she just couldn't bring herself to.

"Hey, Frankie!" She called out as soon as she spotted him, and she convinced herself that the little dance she did around a particularly slow family was just to speed herself up, and not because the marching bands and the sunshine gave her goofy positivity. He smiled at her when he saw her, catching that positivity, probably decidedly less hot than her in his breathable BPD-issue shorts and polyester neon-yellow polo.

Then he seemed to remember why she might be approaching him here in Charlestown instead of solving a murder near Revere. "Uh, hey, sis," he said, coughing. He gripped the handlebars of his bicycle tightly and nodded in the masculinest way he could muster when she bounded up to him.

It didn't stop her from slapping the back of his head. "A text? _Really?_ " she shouted, but her mirth didn't waiver. She was just grateful to be in a little bit of shade, and to be alive for another Bunker Hill Day. A twinge in her still-healing side reminded her that she definitely could be dead right now, if paramedics hadn't been so close by the day she shot Marino by shooting through herself.

Frankie wasn't as pleased. "Ouch, Janie," he said, rubbing where she had hit him. "I just found out! I texted you as soon as I knew."

"That's because you just got the nerve to ask her out today," Jane argued under an arched brow, daring Frankie to deny it. "I don't care how great Becky Zisti looks now that she's back in town; you're ditching me! I got Friday night tickets, field box tickets, for you!"

Frankie groaned. "I know! I know! But I can't pass up this date, Jane. We've been texting back and forth for months and if I blow her off today, I can kiss all that goodbye," he reasoned with her, patting down his styled, gelled hair, as if accentuating his handsomeness would somehow soften her ire.

But, she was not their mother. "You're blowing _me_ off!" she griped. When she saw his contrition, married to his steadfastness, however, she sighed. "I don't mind going by myself, but that's like 85 bucks down the drain, brother. First pitch is in six hours - how do you expect me to post your ticket to StubHub and sell it with enough time to spare? And then I have to sit next to some bozo for three hours?"

"Take someone else," Frankie said, his load considerably lightened now that Jane had accepted his rejection. "If you can't get anyone by seven, I swear I'll pay you for the trouble. Just let me have this thing, _please_."

"A'right, a'right," Jane acquiesced. "You owe me big time, though. And next time you beg me to go to a game, you're payin' for the tickets," she warned.

"Ok, yeah," he smiled again, finally.

Jane started to walk back to her car, but turned around to take him in one last time under the shade of the tree he had camped out under. He was young and his skin glowed and he deserved some happiness. Even if she did think it was stupid to ditch right field line tickets for a girl. "You owe me. Now let's both get back to work."

"I owe you so big, sis," he said sincerely. "Next _two_ games are on me."

Jane couldn't help the laughter that bobbed her larynx up and down. "Don't gotta tell me twice. Let me know how your date goes."

Again, she tried to be mad, but she couldn't. She had aviators on and walked back towards Main Street under her own power - it was enough to energize her all the way back to her car.

Now all she had to do was find someone she could stand long enough to ignore during the night's game. She flipped on her favorite Red Sox talk radio station to distract her in the meantime.

* * *

"You look like you fell into the dunk tank - I thought you were just going to find Frankie," Detective Frost smirked when he saw Jane making her way toward her desk. He, of course, looked impeccable in a baby blue shirt and paisley tie, the perfect combination with his gray slacks and brown shoes. He also looked very _dry_ \- and Jane swore she saw him swinging his hair in the breeze of his desk fan, even though he barely had hair.

She looked exactly like he described, with sweat rings under her arms and a wide, dark stripe down her back. "A/C went out on the way back here. Had to leave it with maintenance."

He shot her a comrade's frown. "Been there. Last month, in fact. I think they break 'em on purpose," he said quietly, rubbing his hand forward against the tight waves on top of his head.

"Because we're homicide?" Jane asked, confused.

"Because they think we're diversity hires," Frost winked.

Jane laughed openly at that. "Maybe so." Her seat was right under a vent, and when she felt the icy air ripple over her damp arms, she moaned. "So listen," she said, eyes closed. "The Frankie mission was a dud. He still isn't coming tonight. You sure you can't?"

Frost rubbed his chest like he were having a heart attack. "It's killing me, Jane, but I really can't. I promised Mom and Robin that I'd help them move into their new place tonight. I've already put it off like three times. Right field box seats? I'm cryin' real tears, here."

Jane chuckled sorely. "Yeah, I know. Me too. Because I'm thinkin' that I'm gonna have to scalp the ticket and sit next to some stranger tonight."

Frost shook his head towards Sergeant Korsak's desk. "Too bad old man's in the gulf til the end of the week. I'm sure he would have liked to go."

Jane leaned forward and signed back into her computer. "I'm sure. I guess I should try to post this shit to StubHub," she said, tapping her boot toe on the linoleum as she pulled up the website.

Frost waved her off. "Fuck that. Jane, you just survived a point-blank bullet to the gut. Treat yourself - keep the ticket and have an empty seat next to you tonight. You can strong-arm the ninety bucks out of Frankie later."

Jane shrugged, considering his advice, truly considering it, until an e-mail notification from a very familiar sender popped up in the right hand corner of her screen. _Oh shit_ , she thought, _that could work._ "I just might. I got one more person to ask first, though."

* * *

"Hey." Jane's second _hey_ of the afternoon was sultrier, calmer than the first. Her _hey_ for Frankie was frantic, annoyed. But, her _hey_ for Maura was a font of goodwill. She was standing in front of Maura now, in her basement office, just across from her.

Maura was still seated at her desk, typing away at a report on her desktop. Jane looked down under the glass of the desk to Maura's legs, crossed primly in a dress and Manolo Blahnik heels, all creamy skin and good manners. They certainly were quite the pair. "Did you review the Kelly tox screen already? That was fast," said Maura, eyes not leaving her screen. "You're very sweaty."

"I know," Jane said, smirking. "I promise not to sit on your fancy furniture. But I haven't looked at the report yet."

"No? Then why are you down here?" Maura asked. She finished her thought, then rolled away from her computer and pulled her white coat more tightly over her sleeveless navy dress. She met Jane's grin with one of her own.

This is how it was between them lately - always friendly, with an edge of flirtatious humor bubbling just below. Maura tapped her fingertips against her chin in a goading rhythm, beckoning Jane to chase.

"Well, technically because your e-mail made me think of you," Jane did not disappoint.

"Think of me?" Maura's question was practically a finger-curl in her direction.

"Yeah. You wanna go to the game with me tonight?" Jane asked her, and heeded the call. She drew closer, close enough that Maura could smell her particular blend of pheromones and lavender perfume wafting on conditioned air.

"What kind of game?" Maura asked, sporting a smirk. "And does this have anything to do with your perspiration?"

"Kinda," said Jane. "A baseball game. At Fenway Park. Frankie was supposed to go with me, but he ditched me for a girl."

"So I'm your second choice?" asked Maura, with a teasing frown.

"Until about an hour ago, he was my _only_ choice. I bought the tickets because he wanted to go. Now that I think about it, though, I'd rather go with you," Jane explained.

Maura blushed as she often did around Jane. "Why is that? I know next to nothing about baseball."

"Because he drinks too much at games. And when he drinks, he talks - usually about anything but baseball. You're the only chatterbox I can stand, so if I'm gonna take one to a game, I'd choose you," said Jane.

"That is diluted logic, but I'll allow it," Maura said, giggling at Jane's ardent expression.

"Ok… does that mean you're gonna go?" Jane, confused but hopeful, stepped closer.

Maura rose to meet her, walked closer to her, close enough to touch her bicep affectionately. "Yes, it does. Pick me up?"

Jane wagged her eyebrows in a little victory dance. "Course," she said, looking at her watch, "be ready by 5:30."

"Ok," Maura agreed. "What should I wear?"

"Only you would ask that," laughed Jane, reminding herself of her surroundings - she'd never met an American as _foreign_ as Maura, with her tribal death masks, her European textbooks, her prehistoric anatomical animal specimens all throughout the space. "But casual. Like jeans and a t-shirt casual. Something you wouldn't mind getting beer spilled on."

Maura made a face. "I don't have _anything_ I wouldn't mind getting beer spilled on. But I take your point."

"Excellent," Jane said, "I'll see you then."

She began a backwards shuffle out of Maura's office, smile firmly in place the whole way. Maura thought her smile looked like summer, and youth, and the exhilaration that a June sunset should bring - the exhilaration of possibility and energy. "And Jane?" she called, unwilling to cede Jane's company just yet.

"Yeah?"

"Shower between now and then," she teased, and Jane shook her head.

"Yeah, yeah."

* * *

Freshly showered at Headquarters and with a duffle bag on her shoulder, Jane buzzed Maura's doorbell what must have been a dozen times. The new home, squarely in the middle of Beacon Hill, put Maura's old, suburban house to shame - it had her own flair and pizazz, it had history, and it had a very ritzy zip code. It also had a guesthouse that housed Jane's mother, just after Jane's father had left her with no home and no source of income - a fact that assaulted Jane mid-knock on the door, one that she had to stuff down far so that she could hold onto the happiness the evening promised her.

"Hi," Maura said, slightly breathless and clearly slightly annoyed, when she pulled open the door. "Why didn't you use your key?"

Jane's knuckles hung in the air, suspended with her arrested knock, the perfect accessory to the shock on her face. "Still uh… still feels weird. I brought you a shirt, just in case, but clearly you don't need it."

Maura stood before her in dark-washed Rag and Bone jeans and black red bottom heels, quintessential casual for her. But, it was all topped off by a distressed red v-neck with an MLB-licensed navy _B_ in the middle of it. "Your mother said I would need it," she said easily, as though that explained everything.

"It's Ma's?" Jane asked, even more confused, "she hates baseball." She continued to stand in the doorway in her own jeans and white jersey, even when Maura stepped aside to let her in the front hall.

"No, it's not hers. I ran into her in the lobby on her way to take your brother lunch," said Maura. "I told her about our plans this evening and she insisted I wear something with a logo on it. Quite forcefully, I might add. She seemed to be afraid that you would be displeased if I didn't. So, I took a quick trip down to Corner Mall and found this. Do you approve?"

Jane blushed as she stepped in, all smiles at the idea of Maura wearing something only to please her. It made her feel strong, needed, desired. "A hundred percent. You'll _almost_ fit right in."

" _Almost_?" Maura whined, looking down at herself and pulling the hem out so she could inspect the t-shirt's finer points better, "I thought it looked very official!"

"It does," Jane said, smirking now, "it's the five hundred dollar shoes that give it away."

"Seven," Maura corrected, closing the door.

"Seven what?"

"Seven hundred."

Jane paled. "For just one pair?"

Maura laughed. "Yes. But they go with nearly anything, Jane."

"They better if you're dropping an entire rent payment on 'em," Jane scoffed. She tried not to look down at her own New Balance runners and failed. "Where can I put my overnight bag?"

It was Maura's turn to feel strong, needed, desired. "You're staying the night?"

"If it's ok with you," said Jane, suddenly nervous and full of self-doubt. Why had she just assumed it would be alright? "We'll be getting back late and I have an early morning," she said to convince herself of what had sounded so obvious in her head on the car ride over.

"Of course it is. Put it in the upstairs guest room. Just across the hall from mine," Maura instructed. Jane nodded, and then took the stairs two at a time to hide her lingering embarrassment.

"Ok, ready?" she asked when she came back, stopping when she saw Maura pulling out two wine glasses from a cupboard.

"Right now? I looked it up and the game doesn't start until 7:10. I thought we had time for a quick drink," Maura said, unopened wine bottle in her hand.

"No no. It's already 5:40. We gotta get a move on if we want to get in our seats by 6:30," Jane said. She started to wave Maura out of the kitchen and toward the door.

"Alright, alright," Maura placated her, grabbing her Birkin bag on the writing desk just behind her sofa and trotting to the door. "Why do we need to be in our seats so early?"

"You'll see. Let's just go, ok? We still gotta find a parking spot and we'll be walking a few blocks. Hopefully that'll be ok in your fancy shoes," Jane said, winking at her. Maura only rolled her eyes and squeezed Jane's arm playfully.

This time, Jane did use her key to lock up, and then they were off toward Back Bay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. - Bostonians refer their city as The Hub of the Universe, and the title of this is a play on that for Fenway herself. I haven't been to Fenway in almost four years, which is WAY too long, especially since I planned on going last year. I'm missing all the grandeur and the hype!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on the stats in this chapter. The discussion is borrowed from the seminal work in sabermetrics called The Book. Right around 2011, when this fic takes place, The Book was one of the go-to sources on rethinking baseball statistics and player values. Obviously, to make sure that I don't bore you to tears, I've condensed and changed some explanations. But read The Book if you want to understand the undergirding of a lot of baseball thought today. Also, most games/scores in this story are based on real Red Sox games that happened during the summer of '11. So, the Sox really did play the Brewers on June 17th.
> 
> Also, Yawkey Way was changed to Jersey Street more recently due to the Yawkey family's history of racism. It remains Yawkey Way here because it was still called that in 2011.

"We're… This is..." Maura was speechless - mostly. Definitely robbed of the ability to _finish_ sentences, even if she tried valiantly to start them.

Industrial green iron beams sprawled out in geometric perfection around her, the ideal counterpart for the surrounding beating-heart red brick on the walls. In the middle of the Fenway neighborhood - one she had visited countless times with Jane to catalogue and release bodies of murder victims - stood a cathedral, erected both to Boston and to sport. Groaning light towers, expanding with summer heat and the thrum of excitement of all of Yawkey Way's revelers, reached upward into the bright blue sky, as if grasping for it. And yet, she had never thought to stop, to worship here, to take it all in.

"Heaven?" Jane supplied for her finally, stopping at a sausage cart and pulling her wallet out of her back pocket. She very well may have been talking about the smell of grilling meat, onions, and peppers, but Maura nodded.

"Something like that, yes, actually," she replied, still looking up at World Series banners, at looming green structures, at ornate stone work spelling out FENWAY PARK over the entirety of the crowd.

"I know," Jane said in sympathy. "It can be a little overwhelming, especially your first time. You got forks?" she asked the vendor, paper basket with a giant Italian sausage sandwich now in hand.

"You kiddin' me?" He said in that alluring mixture of Boston and Puerto Rico, "it's a sandwich."

Jane sighed. "I know. But the lady doesn't like to eat with her hands," she explained, pointing with her head to Maura behind her.

The man, all stained white apron and sweaty Red Sox adjustable hat, glared at her before dipping out of sight behind his cart. He shot back up, looked around so as to preserve his pride, and then handed her a utensil pack wrapped inconspicuously in a hefty bunch of napkins. "Enjoy," he said loudly as other fans passed them.

Jane winked at him. "Thanks man," she said, her voice raspy with a stifled laugh. She bumped Maura's shoulder with her own and pointed to a brick stoop, tucked away amongst all the gates and pennants. Maura looked at her, wide-eyed with anxiety. "It's just a little dirt, Maura. Sit." Maura, albeit reluctantly, did as told, using one of Jane's napkins to wipe decades of dust away. "Good girl," said Jane, taking the plastic knife out of its package and cutting the sandwich down the middle. She handed Maura the bottle of water she'd also bought, and then handed her the paper basket with the fork nestled next to her half. Jane's half landed in her own hand, a placemat of napkins in her lap to catch any spillage. "Now eat. Because I don't buy anything in there except peanuts and beer," she explained, nodding to the building at their backs.

"Oh I don't-"

"Just eat it, please. Think of it like an ethnographic pursuit, ok? I even got you a fork. Which is practically blasphemy."

Maura softened at that. "I'm aware. Don't think I don't see what you do for me," she said warmly, with her hand stroking the round of Jane's bent knee next to her own. "I suppose I owe it to you to at least try it. This place is wonderful, Jane. So vibrant."

Jane grinned broadly at that. "Just wait til you eat that. You'll see sounds."

Maura shook her head, but cut away a piece of the sausage anyway, carefully placing pepper and onion on her fork. The food went in, she chewed thoughtfully, and a moan trickled out. "This is _good_."

"The perfect combination, right?" Jane asked hopefully, around her own full bite, her left cheek distended with it. When Maura nodded, her heart jumped in victory. "It's better than anything you'll find inside the park."

"I believe it," Maura said. "Is this why we're here so early?"

Jane considered her answer. "Yeah. I wanted you to have the experience," she said, looking down at her feet and sniffling loudly.

"Thank you," Maura said sincerely. "I'm already very much enjoying myself. But what aren't you saying?"

"I dunno. Crowds, I guess. I get anxiety now, around crowds. It didn't use to be that way, but after Hoyt, and after the shooting, I just… getting here early helps me plan. And there's less people trying to push down the gates," Jane said, in a rare moment of vulnerability.

Maura, ever the physician, the clinician, nodded knowingly. "It's a normal stress response. You're handling it extremely well."

Jane smiled her gratitude - it was crooked and it was small. "Thanks. Now finish that up so we can go inside."

* * *

The only place on Earth that could beat the views outside of Fenway Park was the inside of it. Jane had to pull Maura to the side of the concourse between field boxes and grandstands so that she could absorb it in peace. The summer air brought the smell of packed, wet dirt and fresh cut grass to them, and Maura thought the manicure of the field itself resembled Roman mosaics. Or maybe a Monet painting, the way the blades were cut so short but somehow hiding something grand within them. When one looked up close, they saw a baseball field, but zooming out for the big picture revealed an intricate logo design of two joined socks - Boston's baseball sigil.

Everything about it was so normal - the field, the seating, metal and old but freshly painted for this season, the concrete steps - except for its grandiosity. All of the things around them were so _big_ , fantastical versions of the everyday structures encountered in the architectural real world. Foul poles, garishly yellow, must have been forty-five feet tall, symbols for how large it _all_ seemed.

And the most shocking thing? People milled about around them, talking, laughing, finding seats, as though Fenway wasn't the most striking of monuments. "Everyone is just so used to this," she finally whispered, feeling Jane safely at her back, who pushed her gently against the handrail in front of them. Jane kept her within a bubble of steel and detective's torso, hard and soft, so that she wouldn't float away. Jane also guarded against the joyous, drunk men that would have pushed her, and the impatient men who barreled their way through the path in order to get to where they were going.

"Well, yeah. Most of us," Jane paused, gesturing to the people around them, "have been here lots of times before. Let's get a beer before we sit down."

Maura nodded, hoping alcohol would bring her detachedness back a little bit. "Good idea."

They stood in line at a beer stand just to their right, Jane paying for both of their drinks before handing one to Maura. "C'mon. Our seats are to die for. When I was a kid, we sat in the nosebleeds," she said. She pointed to the outfield, high up, where more fans were finding their way, barely visible. "I would have killed to sit where we're sitting tonight."

"Nosebleeds?" asked Maura, taking Jane's unoccupied left hand as they made their way down the steps to their row, about fifteen from the field.

Jane stiffened when she felt it, but then relaxed just after, squeezing her fingers against Maura's a few times, just to communicate comfort. "Yeah," she said, stopping, pointing Maura to the second seat at the end of their row, motioning for her to sit. She took the end seat and sipped the foam from the top of her Budweiser. "The idea is, you're so high up that your nose bleeds."

"Ah," Maura said behind a chuckle. "I see," she let out a shaky exhale and copied Jane. The beer was cheap, but ice cold, and hoppy. Good. "Do you feel like this every time you come?"

The question was reverent. Jane's heart grew. "A little bit, yeah. But the real magic happens when the game starts. See those guys out there?" She motioned to the men alternating hosing down the infield and dragging a grate behind them to sift the dirt. "They're getting the field ready for play. Everything around us, all of it, is for the game. As cool as this all is, that's what we're here for."

Maura settled further in her seat and crossed her legs, starting to relax. She watched Jane, so in her element, spine conforming to the curve of the chair and legs spreading wide as she moved her knees in a quiet, slow rhythm. She was confident, unbridled with her beer in her hand, at her lips. "I've never seen you like this. Why have I never seen you like this?"

"Like what?" Jane asked, not looking back at her, but instead trained on the men in home white uniforms stretching their legs out on the grass.

"Like you're home. You're my best friend. I should see you like this all the time," Maura's voice held wisps of a pout, and that was what finally drew Jane to glance at her.

"I'm sure it's not the first time," she said placatingly. "I just don't get to relax like this very often is all."

"Oh, you're not relaxed," Maura countered. "That's not what I mean."

"I'm not?" Jane asked in disbelief.

Maura tapped her knee. "Psychomotor agitation." Then she tapped two knuckles against the left side of Jane's chest, as though she were knocking on a door. "Elevated heart rate." Finally, she swiped one fingertip over Jane's eyebrow. "Dilated pupils. You're experiencing a stress response, however minor."

"I'm just itchin' to start," Jane said, letting a little bit of her accent slip.

* * *

Another beer and one inning later, and Maura felt as though they were both finally beginning to settle. She'd asked a thousand questions since they stood for the national anthem, since the night sky settled in and the lights flooded over them, and since she had first heard the crack of the bat. She was honestly a little sad that she would never have that first time again, so enthralled was she by the acoustics of it. "There is so much to keep track of," she said, more to herself than to Jane, but Jane heard it.

"Yeah, but your big brain is doing it with ease, I'm sure," she replied. She patted Maura's knee and then reached forward for her beer, nestled in the cupholder in front of her. "Just remember the rules about balls, strikes, and outs, and you should be good."

Maura scoffed. "But then that discards the rules of baserunning, of different types of hits, and how they score."

"It's like riding a bike, Maura. Feels a little clunky and uncoordinated at first, but you get used to it. If you choose to," Jane added at the end, retracting her presumption that Maura would _want_ to get used to it.

"I just feel like as soon as I understand the outcome of one at-bat, I forget it because something equally interesting and wildly different happens in the next. It's so hard to chain events. And the scoreboards don't document nearly enough information."

Jane nodded, resigned to Maura's baseball growing pains, until her last statement sparked an idea. "Hang on. I might be able to help with that. Be right back, ok?" Just like that, she was jogging up the steps toward the concourse.

"Jane! Where are you going?" Maura turned in her seat, calling after Jane, but she was already out of sight.

Not three minutes later, though, she was back, and she had a glossy magazine with infielder Kevin Youkilis on the front. "Ok," she said, sitting in her seat and turning towards Maura. "I think you're going to like this. Got a pen in your purse?"

Maura, confused, looked down at her bag, on a bed of napkins under her seat. She pulled a pen out and showed it to Jane.

"Perfect," said Jane, pulling the top off with her teeth and flipping to the middle of the magazine. "I think you're gonna like this." She folded the previous pages back, and revealed a non-glossy, paper set of two pages, with a series of blank boxes, some squares and some rectangles, all arranged for ten innings and nine batters.

"What is it?" Maura asked, regarding it with curiosity. Its crisp lines and clean order called to her.

"This…" Jane said with suspense, "is a scorecard. It comes in every edition of Red Sox magazine. And we're gonna teach you how to use it."

"What does it do?" Maura asked again.

Jane handed her the page and the pen. "Ok, so see all the guys listed for the Brewers up there on the megatron?" She pointed to the beautiful and bright scoreboard in left-center field. All the players for the visiting team were listed, the man who was at the plate highlighted in yellow.

"Mmhmm," Maura answered.

"Write their last names here," instructed Jane, pointing to the batting lineup. "And that's the batting order. Each guy has a row of boxes with a baseball diamond inside where you can record what they do. From strikeout to home run, there's a way. As we go, I can teach you the notation, but this is something people do sometimes to keep track of exactly what happens in the game."

Maura understood immediately, and began filling it in. Jane pointed out a few notes: HR was homerun, obviously. BB was a walk (base on balls took a lengthy explanation), forwards K was a swinging strikeout, backwards K was a looking strikeout. There were more, countless more, and Maura absorbed all of it.

Two more innings and another thousand questions passed this way, until Maura finally felt she had settled into a rhythm. Jane smiled as she watched Maura write diligently, looking up and down, up and down, between players and paper. She almost felt left out, almost, except that Maura was constantly turning to her for information.

"So what is the reason for having each man bat in the order that he does?" Maura asked after Dustin Pedroia made his second out in three plate appearances.

Jane huffed, not out of annoyance, but out of concern to get the answer just right. "Well, the short answer is performance. There is a lot of… conventional wisdom about what kind of hitter should hit where in the lineup. So like, the first guy, Jacoby Ellsbury in our case, should be good at getting on base, and should be fast. The second guy, Pedey, needs bat control and a good average so that if Ellsbury gets on base, he can move him over, get him closer to home. And, _conventionally_ , the number three hitter needs to be your best hitter so that he can drive the run home. Then, the four guy, we call him the cleanup hitter, needs to be able to pick up any extra runs left out there on the basepaths."

Maura had been enraptured by her, and not just by the evening, for almost two hours now. Jane's explanations were filled with undertones of love, of knowledge, and a subtle insecurity - as if Maura were going to tell her at any moment that she were talking too much. Maura could relate all too well. "I noticed the disdain with which you said conventional," she teased, both to show she was listening and to encourage Jane to continue.

"Ignore it," said Jane, blushing. "I'm a Sox fan with a lifetime of opinions. We're just teaching you the basics tonight."

Maura shook her head. "You don't get off that easy. Often, _conventional_ wisdom can be… misinformed. Is that what you think?"

Jane met her gaze and wondered how Maura could read her so well when she supposedly wouldn't know a social skill if it slapped her in the face. She catalogued all the sensations around her: the smell of spilled beer, the crunch of peanut shells underfoot, the sallow pang of lights against her eyelids, the dance of Brewers right fielder Corey Hart in right field as he waited for a ball to come his way, the warm air, the night sky, the stiffness of her seat. It all cradled her in familiarity, in pleasure and routine. She wondered if she risked breaking it, breaking the spell of baseball in the summertime, risked exposing Maura to her… ideology.

Then she remembered who Maura was. A cunning, uncompromising, rigorous scientist. Maybe that fact would save her from judgment. She nodded once for strength and turned to Maura, holding her eyes intently. "The most valuable thing a leadoff hitter could do is get walks."

"Makes sense," Maura said slowly, cautiously, sensing more was coming.

"Because he's the guy that comes up with no outs and nobody on the most. Forty-eight percent of the time," Jane said, hoping somehow against hope that Maura would hear what she was implying, somehow know how to finish the thought. "And the walk, for a leadoff guy, has a .35 run value. That's the amount we would expect it to lead to a run in that situation. That's more than average, if we took every walk ever taken by any batter and put them together to find out how many runs they equal."

Maura's face brightened. Her eyes twinkled and she smiled so wide her dimple appeared. "That's because he comes first. So he sees probably about… given the randomness of the order and the number of players in a lineup… 111 more plate appearances than the next man, and so on down the order. But then why isn't he the best hitter, not just the best walker?"

Jane swore her soul jumped up and down in excitement. All of a sudden, all those sensations she had wanted to desperately to keep alive dulled, leaving only Maura - Maura with her floral perfume that smelled best in a hug, with her light lip gloss that caught the lights like magic, and with her brain, steps ahead of everyone else around them. "Because of uh, base/out states. There's 24 of 'em."

"Ranging from no baserunners and no outs, to three baserunners and two outs, I would imagine," Maura said, drawing Jane out more.

Jane leaned in for the bait, happy for the hook in her lip. "Yeah. The leadoff guy comes up, like I said, with no outs and nobody on, a lot. So, the chance of his hits leading to runs is low, because there's no one on base to drive in. We don't necessarily need him to be a prodigious hitter. We just need him to get on. The cleanup hitter is actually the guy who sees the most plate appearances with guys on base. Fifty-one percent of the time he comes up, there's guys out there. His hits mean more runs because of that. And so his home run, say, is worth about…"

"Point five-one runs more than the leadoff guy," they said in unison, surprising each other. Jane's goofy smile continued and Maura's matched it.

"That you can just _do_ that is… amazing," Jane said, complementing Maura's supercomputer mind, tapping on her temple.

"I could say the same about you…" Maura said breathlessly. "I never knew you had such a penchant for statistics."

"I don't. I read a lot of baseball analysis. Like _a lot_. Like that's all I read," Jane whispered very theatrically behind her left hand.

"I won't tell anyone your secret," Maura laughed happily at the joke, still a little excited. "Baseball is fun, Jane. I had no idea how fun. This has been so… informative."

It was Jane's turn to laugh. "It's fun when we win. I'm in a good mood because we're leading. But baseball is just lots and lots of math, Maura. That's all. Add a splash of human element, of competition, and you have a recipe for the best game on Earth."

As they settled back in front of the game, facing away from each other and toward the field, Maura grabbed Jane's hand and held it. She was emboldened by their moment together, and inclined to agree with everything Jane had just said. It cast a pleasant haze over her in the lazy heat of the evening, creating a perfect storm with the numbers of the game scrawled in her handwriting on her lap, and Jane's touch against her palm.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the most exciting things about baseball in the early 2010s was when they would play Zombie Nation after a home run at like every ballpark.

As the sky darkened completely, Maura decided that she liked everything about late evening at Fenway Park. The humidity swirled around fluorescent lamps above them, creating haze that crept in the peripheries of her vision, making each play rosy, idyllic. It softened life, specifically this moment when Jane tapped her fingers against the top of Maura's seat and wiggled her leg, bouncing it unconsciously against Maura's every few seconds. "You're _very_ anxious," Maura noted, setting her pen down to calm Jane's knee with her hand. She smiled despite Jane's cantankerous movements.

"Well, we're not winning anymore," Jane said hoarsely, thumb and pointer finger busy with some frantic tempo near Maura's left shoulder, her eyes never floating back to Maura's own.

Maura had been so busy keeping score that Jane's discomfort came upon her quickly. Now she catalogued all of it: the balled right fist, the dancing knees, the muffled cursing for her sake. And yet, though it talked like danger, Maura knew it instantly to be a benign sort of passion. At least, benign to her. And that made it beautiful - a natural product of Jane's body, Jane's very alive, vibrant body, a body that almost wasn't just a few months before when it laid in front of the steps of BPD.

So this agony elated Maura. "Well, the Red Sox are not losing. They're tied. What's the metaphor you always use with me? 'It's not over until the last out of the 9th, and sometimes not even then'? It's not over yet, Jane."

Jane exhaled. "I know. But it still hurts," she said, and the melodrama in it quickened Maura's already susceptible heart. "I'm uh, I'm gonna get one more beer. You want anything?"

Maura looked down at her empty plastic cup and decided to give Jane something to do for her. That always seemed to quell her. "Yes, another beer please."

"You got it," Jane said, and she jogged the steps two at a time before Maura could say thank you.

She returned two or so minutes later, beer sloshing quietly over her thumbs as she sat herself in her corner seat heavily. "Careful," Maura said as a reflex while she took her cup. "You were about to miss the start of the second half of the fifth inning."

Jane's smile was precarious, but present. "Never," she said cockily. "I've got it down to an exact science." And sure enough, by the time she sat down, Marco Estrada, starting pitcher for the Brewers, trotted toward the mound. "And we say 'bottom of the fifth,' by the way. Or 'bottom half.'"

"You were about to miss the start of the bottom of the fifth. How was that?" Maura teased, narrowing her gaze at the new feeling of not really knowing the protocol, the lingo, for something so scientific.

Jane had stopped looking at her, though, so she didn't catch Maura's disbelieving glance when she said, "sexy." The joke came out without a second thought, with Jane's eyes on the way Adrian Gonzalez wiggled his bat against his left shoulder as he waited for the first pitch, a strike.

Maura wanted to chase the feeling it gave her, the way Jane called her that. But Jane was already leaning her elbows on her knees and wringing her hands, bouncing them up around her mouth as she watched the second pitch be fouled off, and then the third almost hit him on the left elbow. The fourth was another foul ball. "It seems you've got a lot of this sport down to an exact science," Maura finally replied. "Why is he not out?"

"Hmm?" said Jane, raising her head but not taking her gaze off of Gonzalez. The next pitch was outside and low for a ball. She gave a tiny, hand-against-fist clap of excitement. The count was even at two balls, two strikes. A fighting chance.

"The batter. He took strike one and then fouled off two more. Why isn't he out?"

"You can't foul out unless someone catches it, or you're bunting," Jane said. The sixth pitch was a ball as well, and Maura saw teeth appear through Jane's small, crooked grin. _3-2_.

And then, Maura bore witness to the most incredible of happenings: with one kickstep in, a toe pounded into the dirt, Adrian Gonzalez rotated his hips outward and struck the seventh pitch on the outer half of the plate with his bat. The sound was thunder cracking against the inky summer sky. He sent it screaming in a rainbow loop over the Green Monster, thirty-seven feet high, where it plunked into the seats and created an epicenter of euphoria that soon radiated outward to the entire stadium.

No one's euphoria was quite as contagious as Jane's, at least not to Maura, when she jumped to her feet and hollered with the rest of the fans around her, fists still bunched, but now at her sides. When Jane yelled, the movement called to the clouds, her face pointed upward, but it was grounded entirely in her pelvis. Her hips slung low, forcing her stance wide apart – she celebrated like a cowboy, a renegade, a champion. "See that?!" Jane asked Maura, who had stood to watch the ball sail over the fence and then to watch her friend. "That was a bomb! Smoked! Crushed! Tattooed!"

All the words sounded like English, but Maura refused to point out their nonsense so as not to dampen the joy. "He did hit it quite far," she laughed. Jane ran her hands through her hair and laughed, too, the breathless sound of it adding to its overall addictive properties.

They both sat down shortly after, just as the rest of the crowd did. Jane turned to Maura again, finally, smirking at her as their eyes connected just before she took the program out of Maura's bag and turned it to the scoring page. Maura hoped that the Red Sox would remain on top for the rest of the game just so that Jane would keep looking at her. "Right here, that goes as an HR - then you trace the entire diamond there because that at-bat resulted in one hit, one run. He touched all the bases."

Maura picked up her pen dutifully.

* * *

"Why are people leaving?" Maura, nearly two-innings later, marveled at why anyone would ever leave this place before they had to, but especially when the Red Sox were winning, seven to four.

Jane sensed her confusion and patted her knee in response. "They're not leaving. It's the seventh inning stretch," she said. "Like a built-in break. You're supposed to stand and sing 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame,' but I usually sit and look up stats on my phone," Jane paused, then shook her head. "But of course, because it's your first time, we will be the loudest people in the section."

And Jane was, as Maura watched, mortified and enthralled. She shouted the words, from memory really, having handed Maura her blackberry with the lyrics pulled up. Maura of a few hours before would have thought the display gauche, distasteful. But now, there was _something_ about the off-kilter chorus of nearly forty-thousand people praising baseball at the same time. They all knew what to do, what to say, all of them, it felt like, and she definitely wanted to know, too. Maybe she'd do a little more research and participate next time.

The rest of the game passed with relatively little fanfare, and after falling into a six-run deficit, the Brewers never did catch up. As soon as Corey Hart grounded out to third and the ball hit Adrian Gonzalez's glove at first base to end the top of the ninth inning, Jane was up and clapping with gusto. "Let's go!" she shouted, and then blushed at her own outburst. She turned to Maura then, the both of them standing. "I'm glad we could get a win for your first time," she said.

Maura let herself be disarmed as she gathered her purse and stacked their beer cups together to recycle on the way out. "Me too," she said quietly, "lead the way."

"Ok, gimme your hand, then." Jane reached out, her long, strong fingers, spreading wide for Maura's, and Maura snatched them before Jane thought better of it. "There's lots of yahoos at the end of games. Drunk ones. And they will barrel you over - or cop a feel, so c'mere," Jane continued. She tugged Maura up the steps and in front of her, pressing herself against Maura's back, while keeping their hands intertwined and down by their sides. They were moved by the crowd behind them as much as they moved on their own.

"You're lucky I have a photographic memory," snarked Maura. She turned her head to the side so that Jane would hear her.

Jane leaned forward anyway, putting her ear just at Maura's lips. "I am lucky. We're lookin' for Gate B, right by all the kids stuff."

"I remember," Maura responded, and nighttime air cooled the dewy skin of her back as soon as they made their way toward the concourse. They were soon back under the green iron and between brick walls, bodies now spread out into open space just before they walked through the gate.

Jane moved to let go of Maura's hand when they made their way out onto Van Ness Street, but Maura held on. Jane smiled to herself and then at Maura, and swung their arms up and down between them. "So? What's the verdict, Dr. Isles? Do our plebeian sports have any cultural value?"

Maura laughed. "Well, Dr. Rizzoli, the jury's still out," she teased, and when Jane's face fell a little bit, she leaned into their joined shoulders. "But baseball? Jane, I don't think I've done anything as… stimulating as that. And there is just _so much_ to know."

"That's the appeal, if you can stick with it," Jane said, placated and darkly joyous. Her eyebrows narrowed forward and she winked at Maura. "It's like, a tragicomedy in nine acts, and you get to do it every night. For six months."

"You talk about it so… respectfully," Maura observed. She squeezed Jane's hand in her own as they made their way past the Shell station and down the street toward Jane's all-black Civic. "I can see that it's very important to you."

Jane nodded. "I don't think there's anything more important to me - except maybe you, and my family. And even then, that's only a maybe."

"I'm only _maybe_ more important than baseball?" Maura scoffed. She shoved Jane with her free hand and Jane chuckled.

"No, you're definitely more important. I meant the maybe for my family," she said, dropping Maura's fingers so that she could fish in her pocket for her car keys and unlock Maura's door.

Maura sat in the passenger seat and waited for Jane to start the car before she continued. "I want to do that again," she said seriously, turning towards Jane, who pulled onto the street from their parking spot, police placard since removed from the dash.

"Yeah?" Jane asked, a little surprised. When Maura hummed the affirmative, she smiled broadly. "We will, then. We got a whole summer of games ahead of us. And if I can't take you, I'm sure my kid brothers would be more than happy to."

"Oh no. With you, specifically," Maura said honestly as they made their way back toward Beacon Hill. The drive should have taken ten minutes, but with traffic away from the park it would easily take thirty.

"What?" asked Jane, distracted by the bold drivers cutting in front of her. "Hey, watch it!"

Maura winced. "I want to go with you, specifically. I love your brothers, but neither of them can do what you do."

"Well I would agree with you. But what are we talking about?" Jane said.

Maura laughed. "You use statistical equations to derive pleasure and meaning from sport. You know how to calculate a run expectancy, for example."

"Yes I do. I'm very nerdy."

"Hmm. maybe. But so am I, and I like it. It's a side of you I didn't expect. And, no offense-"

"But a side Tommy and Frankie don't really have," Jane finished for her. "I get that. And I don't really wanna share baseball Maura with them, anyway. Not just yet."

"Well, baseball Maura may be brand new," Maura said as she rested her head on the back of her seat and turned it to Jane, "but she's all yours. For as long as you'll have her."

Jane fought a losing battle with a grin and blushed most of the way home.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few notes on this chapter - 1) Will Flemming did not do the post game radio show in 2011 on WEEI radio, but I'm not sure who did, so that's who we're going with for now. 2) Try to never buy tickets through a team's website - that's where they'll be the most expensive. Rookie mistake. 3) When my Dad and I go to games out at Angel Stadium, we always turn on the post-game radio and listen to it all the way home - been doing so since I was a kid. This is a quintessential baseball thing to do, and if you want to acquaint (or reacquaint) yourself with the grand game, radio is one of the best and most immersive ways to do it.

_Maura's laughter carried into the front hall as she and Jane spilled into it, still high from the Red Sox's win against the Brewers. "Do you want another drink?" Maura offered, already in the kitchen with one hand on the wine fridge door._

_Jane shook her head. "No, thanks. I had three at the park already, and I gotta help Tommy with some job site tomorrow."_

_Maura nodded, impressed. "Was Tommy working on his plumbing license in prison?"_

" _Not quite," Jane said, rubbing the back of her neck. "It's an under-the-table thing. Friend of a friend, word of mouth type of job. But I told him I'd help him out, so I should be_ extra _sober."_

" _Oh, I see," Maura said. She changed course, went for the pitcher of water in her refrigerator, and poured herself a glass of that instead. She was anxious to keep the night going, to compound the rush that Fenway had given her, but Jane seemed to have other plans._

" _I, uh, I should go upstairs and get ready for bed. I gotta shower off the peanut dust," Jane said, laughing when Maura did._

" _Alright," Maura acquiesced, unwilling to push. She took one sip and then carried the glass toward the staircase as they walked. "Come say good night when you're finished? I'll probably be asleep when you leave."_

" _Yup," Jane agreed. She watched Maura disappear behind the closed door of the main bedroom, and then she wandered into the guest room just across the hall. She treated her jersey with care, unbuttoning it slowly and then shrugging it onto a hanger in the closet. She tossed the rest of her clothes on the bathroom floor before pulling her clean hair back and hopping into the shower._

_Her rinse was calming, and her muscles, tired from the day and from sitting in stadium seats, were reinvigorated. It was quick, but it was what she needed. She dressed, hung her towel on the rack attached to the door, and then unleashed her dry hair again._

_An idea took hold as she brushed her teeth, and she poked her head out of the bathroom toward the hallway. Maura had opened her door, apparently serious about wanting Jane to say goodnight. And, given all that had transpired between them that evening, Jane knew the best way to do that._

_It was just… she was trepidatious. Maura had said all the right things, had gushed at all the appropriate plays and stats, but Jane knew she also liked to please. Part of Jane wondered if Maura's interest in baseball was an act to please her, rather than something truly real._

_And then she remembered that Maura was incapable of deception, at least not for long periods of time. This emboldened her as she rummaged through her duffle bag. She nodded to herself once for finality and walked across the hall, flicking off the guest room light on her way out._

" _Wanna do the funnest thing on Earth there is to do?" she asked, a little giddy, standing in the doorway to Maura's room._

" _Most fun," Maura corrected her teasingly. She laid on the bed in a silk nightgown with her head perched on her hand, also freshly showered, and smiled at Jane. "And I think we already did that tonight. Well, the most fun thing you can do not involving an orgasm."_

_Jane was too high to pretend she was perturbed by the innuendo. "Well unfortunately this doesn't involve orgasm, either, but almost. Remind me to pinch myself in the morning - it's the coolest thing that you actually like this." She stepped into the dark space with tight black boxer briefs on and a tank top - her sleepwear of choice in June. She also carried a small personal radio in one hand and an iPad and her phone in the other._

" _I'm glad that it makes you happy. I just have so many questions and I feel like each one that gets answered makes me crave more," Maura said breathlessly, and moonlight from her open bedroom window illuminated Jane crawling into her bed._

" _I know the feeling. In fact, I still feel that way thirty years later. But for the rest of tonight, we're just gonna enjoy it," said Jane. She placed the radio on the nightstand closest to her and powered it up. Of course, it was already preset to WEEI, the Red Sox talk affiliate, and she turned it to the volume that made her want to hover between waking and sleeping, as long as she daydreamed about base hits and the way the stars seemed to shine brighter on summer nights. "So after each game, fans call in and ask questions. Or sometimes they just talk shop. But it's like having the entire city of Boston at your fingertips. Or your earlobe, I guess. C'mere, so you can hear."_

_Maura inched over, bending awkwardly to try and optimize her hearing without making Jane uncomfortable. Jane was on her back, propped up by an expanse of luxurious pillows, and she bemusedly watched Maura struggle._

_Maura leaned over her, but instead of upping the volume for both of them to hear, Jane pressed Maura onto her chest, bidding her to curl into her side while she propped the iPad on her belly so that both of them could see the screen. Maura tensed at first, nervous, but then she let herself melt into the embrace, even draped her arm against Jane's abdomen, placing her hand flat on it. "They stay on the radio this late, just to talk about baseball?" She asked, watching Jane pull up several saved tabs on the web browser._

_Jane then glanced at the clock to make sure she gave the right answer. 11:03. "Oh yeah. Game ended at 10 or so, so they'll be on til midnight. If you have it just at this volume, it feels like everything's right in the world, doesn't it?"_

_Maura considered it and the way it made Jane's heart slow against her ear. "I'll admit that there's something soothing about the radio in our world of constant connectedness. Like people are out there, but there isn't the added expectation of interaction. They talk while you just listen."_

" _Yeah," Jane agreed, humming contentedly. She sighed and then nudged Maura's head on her shoulder toward the iPad. "Check this out. Remember how you said the scoreboard doesn't tell you enough information? Well the Red Sox website gives recaps, box scores, and gameplay breakdowns for each game. And then you can…" she paused to switch tabs, "go over to Baseball Reference and see a player's stats for the whole season. And every season he's played, actually. They have pages for current and former players and if you wanted, you could calculate a player's WAR from scratch just from the information here."_

 _Maura's head went up. "Oh that_ is _useful. What's WAR?"_

_Jane smiled so widely that her mouth dropped open, just a little. "Wins Above Replacement. All the stats sites have a different equation for it. I like Baseball Reference just because it's what I cut my teeth on when I was learning all this stuff. Basically, the idea of the stat is that it should tell you how many wins a player got for his team through his play, as opposed to a league-average player at the same position."_

_Maura's face lit up with some genius thing that Jane couldn't name but had seen a thousand times. "So it compares two players?"_

" _No. It compares a real player to, like, an average of a bunch of players that would be considered 'replacement' - or performing at replacement-type player levels. Replacement players aren't good - it's like this theoretical concept of a bunch of guys who would be the next player up if your starter at that position went down," Jane explained. "That way the stat is relevant because-"_

" _There's potentially a very large sample size," Maura said seriously. She propped her head up and her face was inches from Jane's. They shared breath. "Oh, Jane. Now you're speaking my language."_

" _Easy tiger," Jane laughed. "I'll show you the equation some other time because it's cumbersome and would take forever to finish, but here. Keep the iPad for now. It's got everything you could possibly need bookmarked. And unlike me, I doubt you'll need scratch paper to work it all out." she put the tablet to sleep and then leaned over just slightly so that she could drop it onto the lower shelf of the nightstand._

_When she came back up, she was face to face with Maura again, whose hand rested higher on Jane now, at the junction of her abdominals and her ribs. The voice of Will Flemming, deep and smooth, rolled between them, describing possible targets for the Red Sox to acquire at the trade deadline about a month and a half away. Jane tried to latch onto the discussion, but hazel eyes wouldn't let her out of their orbit. "Call me tomorrow. We can talk more about it," Maura said, but it sounded like something much weightier. Not like something Jane had done almost every day since they had become friends._

_She nodded. "A'right," she said in a breezy whisper. "Now let's hear what Alan from Dorchester has to say," she joked, Dorchester sounding like_ door-chis-tah _in her exaggerated New England accent._

_Maura laughed and broke the trance, laying her head back down on Jane, who didn't seem to mind. They faded in and out of waking as Alan ranted about the lack of bullpen pitching depth and the need for a steady replacement of Jed Lowrie, the shortstop put on the disabled list just an hour previously. Jane grunted in agreement, and Maura felt it rumble from her cheek all the way to her belly, letting it vibrate her to sleep._

* * *

"Fuck… Rizzoli." Jane had awoken with a start to the blare of her ringtone, unsure of her surroundings, or really, what day it was and why her right arm was so heavy. She had blinked slowly, her eyelids heavy, and oriented herself. Maura's bedroom, still dark, 4:58 AM. Maura still at her side, but now awake, too, her head slightly up and her eyes still squinting. Jane put the phone to her ear after cursing, and answered as professionally as she could.

"Who is it?" Maura asked, almost before Jane could possibly know, but then Jane was getting up.

She sat up gingerly, wiggling her toes on the carpet at the side of the bed, and waved Maura off. "Yeah, I'll be there. Thanks." she sighed and rubbed the back of her head. "Dispatch. Got a body out by Logan. You'll probably get a call soon."

Reality flooded the room, along with responsibility. Maura sighed and flopped onto her back, stretching despite every part of her telling her to go back to sleep. "I see," she said just before a yawn. "I'll get coffee started."

Jane shook her head. "Don't worry about me, alright? I gotta drop my stuff off at home first and get a fresh suit. I just realized I forgot my on-call bag by the front door. And then I gotta break the news to Tommy." Then she was standing, wincing at the tug in the scar on her side, and staring back at Maura from the threshold. "I'll see you at work?"

Maura hid her disappointment behind another yawn. "Yes. See you there."

* * *

Jane had gone, despite her inclinations not to, to the tiny donut shop on Prince Street a few blocks from her apartment in the North End, and purchased two piping hot cups of coffee. Hers was mostly unaltered - black, with two sugars, but the other one… well, it only contributed to Jane's hesitancy.

She'd awoken, in the pitch black of the early morning, in Maura's bed with Maura on top of her. Practically. And she'd also awoken to the hum of the radio, playing infomercials with indiscernible words because the sound had been so low, interrupted by the jagged pings of her cell phone. The haze that Fenway had pulled over her dissipated, leaving cold uncertainty in its wake - had Maura really enjoyed baseball that much? Had she really taken to sabermetrics, fallen in love with balls and strikes?

Or had Jane pushed it on her?

Jane hated this feeling, and it made her second-guess the all-organic, almond-milk creamer and stevia she'd put into Maura's cup, even though Maura was the only reason her run-down little Donut Haven carried the stuff. She hated feeling like she'd imposed her passions on impressionable and friend-starved Maura, and it imbued her steps with a little extra caution as she crossed into BPD, pressing the down-elevator button with her elbow. She'd apologize, try to make it right, tell Maura that she didn't have to like baseball just to make Jane happy.

Apologies always made her itch, and she thought, for a moment, about pressing the 3rd floor button instead once she got inside. She'd tell Frost she bought him some coffee on her way back from the dead guy stuffed inside the suitcase just outside Terminal E at Logan.

He'd never believe her.

One taste of the fancy stuff and he'd look at her like she sprouted a second head. So, Maura's office it was. Jane peered over her right wrist to check the time, 11:31. Still enough time for Maura not to refuse caffeine, even if it was getting close to the noon cut-off. She guessed she could down Maura's, too, if she had to - two cups at this time of day was pretty much routine for her. But why the hell was she all of the sudden so nervous about taking Maura coffee? Or what Maura thought about the Sox?

Didn't matter, because she _was_ nervous, and sweaty, again. At least a black button up hid it better than her salmon shirt from the day before. "Hey," she said, raspy and unguarded despite herself as she used one free knuckle to knock on the open door.

Maura was deep in thought behind her computer. She spared half a glance in Jane's direction and noticed the coffee. "Donut Haven? You shouldn't have," she said, frowning in concentration.

Jane turned red. Always with the blushing these days - she put the cup on Maura's desk, standing just across from her. "Sure I should've. I had to leave in a hurry this morning. And then I had to track down our unfortunate victim's boyfriend. Who may or may not have beaten him and stuffed him into some luggage. I didn't get to say I'm sorry."

"Hmm?" Maura said, sounding distant, far away. "It's fine. Come here."

Jane raised an eyebrow. "It's not fine, Maura. I just don't want you to think you have to like baseball just to make me-"

"I don't," Maura interrupted, as though she were too busy to be bothered with whatever nonsense Jane was spouting, too busy to placate her. Jane had the wherewithal to look offended, but then Maura finally looked up at her. "I said, come here."

Jane moved around to the other side of the desk to look at what Maura was looking at, no doubt some science-y report or digitized x-ray from this morning's homicide. She nearly fell over when she saw the official Red Sox ticket sales site pulled up, with Field Box 29 highlighted and zoomed-in. "Are these adequate seats?"

"Uh, y-yeah," Jane sputtered through her recovery. "Those are… those are like primo seats. Only place better would be a sky box or behind home plate."

Maura nodded seriously. "Good."

"Thinking about my next birthday already?" Jane asked, laughing a little at Maura's concentration as she used the in-field feature to toggle between images of the row she'd clicked on and its view of the field of play. "Still nine months away, but I'd never turn Field Box seats down."

Maura turned to her right shoulder where Jane hovered and sported a look of confusion. "What? No. For tonight. They've raised the prices because they're same day tickets, but I don't mind paying since you did last night."

Jane's mouth went dry and she reached out for the lip of the desk to steady herself. That brought her closer to Maura, which was a mistake, because now all she could think about was how the floral notes of that perfume smelled against the wheaty tang of Fenway beer. "You serious?" she asked quietly.

"Yes, I'm serious. We both have tomorrow off and I felt like we only scratched the surface. Please, Jane?" Maura pleaded, suddenly unsure. She had been certain Jane would have jumped at the chance right before the detective entered the room, but now Jane was here, and silent, and flushed, and Maura had doubts.

"That's like three hundred bucks on tickets," Jane said, simply going through the motions of hesitancy. Of course she would say yes - Maura wanted Fenway, again, with her. She'd say yes a thousand times.

"You know that's nothing for me," Maura said, and already she saw Jane getting ready to reply with _but not for me_ , so she continued. "Three hundred dollars is nothing to see you that happy."

Jane twitched her nose, actually a little emotional. "Ok, fuck it. Yes. Let's do it." She stood up, hands crossed over her pelvis and elbow leaning on her firearm. She watched the elation travel up Maura's face, starting at her smile and ending at the pretty crease of her eyes.

"Oh, Jane, really? Should I buy them now?" Maura asked, suddenly bashful.

"Yup. I'm gonna walk away before I see the total and change my mind, but I'll pick you up around 5:00, alright? I plan to get outta here a little early since it's Saturday," Jane said, walking backwards in a mirror image of the evening before. "I got a few things I gotta do."

"Ok," Maura called after her, "see you then."

Jane stopped in the doorway and smiled warmly. "It's even better your second time, Maura. Promise," she said. Maura only smiled and shook her head.

* * *

Jane turned on her heel swiftly, and almost ran right into her brother, Frankie, out in the hall. "Hey, Janie," he said. He was in his uniform and his hair was immaculate. "Big win last night, huh? Checked the recap when I got home."

"Yeah it was a good one," she said, stopping to look at him and wonder why it seemed like he was walking to Maura's. "Why're you down here?"

He held up a clear evidence bag with a tube inside. "Fibers for the lab," he said, and immediately she grinned again. "What about you, huh? Why you look so happy? Got a date tonight?"

"What do you mean?" she scoffed, "I always look like this."

"No, you almost never look like this. You always look like you get paid to be mean. You're smilin' an awful lot," he teased back. "So, I'll ask again: you got a date tonight?"

"Even better," Jane replied, "I'm goin' to the game. Great seats."

Frankie's mouth dropped open. "Again? I thought that was last night."

"It was. But I may also have tickets for tonight," she shrugged, figuring she could at least play coy for all his dating talk.

"Like tickets, plural? I know one of those has my name on it. Janie, c'mon."

"Uh uh. You ditched me yesterday and I haven't stopped crying yet. Me and Maura are goin'," Jane said, and then she started her walk toward the elevators.

"Didn't she go with you last night? Why are you takin' her again? Jane! I can front you the money!" Frankie did an about-face from his destination and trotted after his sister.

"What can I say? Last night was so nice, she's gotta do it twice," said Jane, not bothering to look over her shoulder at her now very dejected younger brother.


	5. Chapter 5

Maura surveyed herself in her full-length mirror, smoothing her hands against the white fabric over her flat belly, her head cocking to the side before she stepped a hip inward to inspect how her ass looked in her jeans. It was reflexive, she told herself, to rate how attractive she was in any outfit, but she had to admit that the curved flap of material that ended just below her waist accentuated all the best parts of her.

A Red Sox t-shirt wasn't the only thing she'd bought at the mall the previous day- she'd also bought this jersey. But, she had balked at the last moment the night before, deciding that the chances of Jane also wearing a white jersey were too great, and matching would have been too awkward. Not to mention, she had no idea how to wear it properly. How did one _walk_ in a Majestic official replica? Did it require subdued confidence, audacious flair, or something in between? She had been too indecisive and concluded a tee would be safer.

What a colossal error that had been, because she was wearing the _shit_ out of this, as Jane might say. She imagined that not many women of Fenway wore their home whites with Zanotti heels, but that truly made the outfit - cream-colored patent leather to provide a little upper-class flair for her working-class top.

And maybe that was the most intoxicating part, the blend of upscale and worn-in, because Maura definitely felt a little intoxicated when her doorbell rang and she hurried down the stairs. "You're early," she told Jane as she opened the door for her.

Jane made the appearance of a laugh: she bobbed her larynx up and down twice under the warm skin of her throat, but no sound came out, and she licked her lips. "Yeah, by a whole four minutes. You look… Jesus. You sure you wanna go with me?"

"Of course, why wouldn't I?" Maura asked, stepping aside for Jane for the second time in twenty-four hours.

"You just… you look great. And I look like," Jane paused, holding her arms out to display her navy short-sleeve Sox hoodie, black jeans, and red-white-and-blue New Balance turf shoes. She had a gift bag in one hand. "Well, I thought I looked good, too, but turns out I look like your prep-school son's schlubby baseball coach."

Maura laughed openly. "Well I appreciate your compliment. And I hope that if I do ever have a son, his baseball coach will be half as knowledgeable and passionate as you."

"Aunt Jane'll make sure of it," said Jane quietly in reply, her fingers intertwined behind her back. It had somehow been the wrong thing to say, despite the way it heated up the both of them. Or maybe not wrong, necessarily, but _just shy_ of right. Jane sought to make it better as she followed Maura's lead into the kitchen. "Hey, Maura. I bought you somethin'."

Maura spun around, hand on the island counter, eyes alight and childlike. "Oh? Like a present?"

"Exactly like a present," affirmed Jane, and then she held out the gift bag for Maura to take. The tissue paper on top was haphazard, and the sides of the bag were a bit creased, but Jane fidgeted with excitement, and so Maura did, too.

She took it, tossed the paper away, and then pulled out a spiral-bound notebook that said _Rawlings Deluxe Scorebook_ on its front, with about 50 pages inside. "It's-"

"It's, uh, it's a scorebook. That way you don't have to buy a program every time we go. I know it's not the fanciest, but I figured it could be a good starter while you're still deciding if you actually like this and-"

Maura stepped forward and kissed Jane's cheek softly to stop her rambling. "I love it. It's very thoughtful, thank you. And I _do_ actually like this, Jane, so stop doubting yourself - I spent all afternoon trying not to call you about wOBA."

Jane sighed dreamily. "Stop flirting, or you'll make us late," she said, leaning into their closeness, suddenly regretting buying Maura that book, because it prevented Maura's hands from being anywhere but holding it between their bodies. Jane wasn't sure those hands would have been on her had the scorebook been out of the equation, but at least they would have had the _option_ to be.

"Is it true that the weights for the calculation change on a yearly basis?" Maura teased, sending her voice into sultry territory on purpose, never one to back away from a challenge.

Jane gulped. "That is accurate, yeah. You wanna skip the game, go upstairs, and calculate wOBA for the whole Sox lineup instead?"

Maura laughed, threw her head back with one hand on Jane's shoulder, and the spell was broken. "Maybe when we get home. Why are you wearing a backpack?"

"Uh, it's our game bag," Jane replied. She blinked rapidly, trying to understand what had just transpired between them and why her heart thrummed against her sweatshirt. "I got bottles of water, a bag of peanuts, a portable radio, an extra windbreaker, and gum. I can put the tickets in it if you want."

Maura peered around Jane's shoulder, hand still on it and turning it slightly so she could get a better look at the faded black bag. She scrunched her nose. "You plan to take that out in public?"

Jane looked back behind herself as best she could. "Yeah. Listen Maura, subsequent trips to the park are a lot less… glamorous than the first. Especially ones so close together. It's not practical to buy everything there. One summer just out of the academy I went to thirty games, and this bag was with me through thick and thin."

"I take your point, but does it have to be so… worn? I've got plenty of newer shoulder bags that would fit all of those items just fine."

"That cost like five-hundred bucks apiece! I'm the one carrying it; what does it matter? It's not like you're ever gonna go without me."

Maura tapped her chin and leaned her hip on the edge of the countertop. "But what if you're on call and I want to go anyway? Or if you're caught up interrogating a suspect and have to meet me at our seats a few innings late? I don't want to be… seen wearing that," she insisted.

Jane sighed. "Fine, Princess. You don't like it? Find one on your own time. But for now, this is the one we got and we don't have time to change it. You ready?"

"We're going to be even earlier today?" Maura asked, walking around to her writing desk behind the couch and grabbing a pouch of pens. She then made her way to Jane's back and unzipped the backpack with cautious fingers, dropping the pouch and her new scorebook inside.

"Wallet and keys go in, too, if you're not too worried about my germs," Jane teased, calling behind herself. "And yeah. I want to take you around the concourse today before the action starts."

Maura made a face, but had to admit that the idea of one family bag for a Fenway outing made sense, especially with security checks and metal detectors before the ticket line. And, maybe taking a Birkin bag to a place riddled with sticky concrete and discarded, saliva-covered peanut shells wasn't the _most_ logical plan. It also felt distinctly like Jane was taking care of her, in her own Rizzoli way. Then the second-half of Jane's statement hit her. "You want to walk the concourse together?"

Jane smiled. Then she ran a hand through her loose, voluminous hair and swirled her car keys around her finger. "Yeah. Stats are fun, but taking in all the history? Priceless. You'll like it. Lots of useless information for you to memorize."

"How thoughtful of you," Maura said, rolling her eyes. Even so, she couldn't help the smile that appeared when Jane held open the front door for her. "Let's go before I change my mind and give your ticket away to somebody else."

* * *

"Hook a left and we'll take a ramp up to the bleachers," Jane said, pushing Maura against the small of her back toward the outfield concourse. "Usually you can't see the Living Museum unless you pay for a tour, but I know the head of security up there and he owes me."

"You're bending the rules for me, are you?" Maura asked. She felt Jane move from behind her to her side once they turned up the ramp. She stopped for a moment when she saw the purple-orange of the sleeping sun poke through the concrete and metal of the concourse, wanted to feel it on her skin in real time.

Jane was right - Fenway exuded even more magic the second time around. There was a heady combination of familiarity and novelty, like she knew enough to follow along, but not enough to be _sage_. Not like Jane, who seemed to know everything about everything when it came to this place. She even chewed her cinnamon gum next to Maura like she was married to the sunset and had only half a mind to notice it, understanding that it had always been there, would always be there. "Best view there is of the city," she said, and Maura nodded. The railing in front of them and the floor of the ramp just above provided a frame for Boston's prettiest skyscrapers, the Prudential building standing tallest among them.

Maura gripped the railing to steady herself within the wave of enchantment that washed over her. She didn't resist it or fight against it, because it felt so _good_ in the lower compartment of her chest, right before it surprise-dropped into her belly and trickled even lower. _Drip, drip, drip_ \- she recognized it rippling slowly into attraction, and this time, she didn't bury it, like she had several times before in her friendship with Jane. Instead, she stepped closer to Jane's side when they walked through the Budweiser patio, past clusters of young adults at high-rise tables and TVs blaring the pregame analysis on NESN. "Maybe next time we take in a game, we can come up and have a drink. Beer's not the fanciest, but hey, it's cold," said Jane, and the way she turned her head to talk into Maura's shoulder gave Maura over to a shudder.

A pleasant one. "I'd like that," Maura said quietly. They slithered through a few hallways and then arrived at an open glass door encased in solid concrete and green iron.

"We get ten minutes, tops, ok? Johnny's gotta run a tight ship," Jane whispered when they approached the guard, Johnny, just inside the room, who nodded at them once when he saw Jane. She winked at him, at his overly-tough veneer, and then he broke into a wide smile, pointing his thumb to where the exhibits began.

"Oh, Jane," Maura said on the wings of a sigh when they really, truly, entered. Just to their left were what must have been almost a hundred baseballs in an ornate glass case. The first ones, closest to the top, looked old. They yellowed in the telltale color of history, the color that often sped up Maura's heartbeat and set her brain to whirring. This was no different - to see all the signatures on those baseballs, to know that these men belonged to a tradition steeped in so much _time_ took her breath away _._ She took Jane's hand, laced her fingers in Jane's, drew circle patterns on her thenar webspace when she realized that Jane had, just last night, inducted her into that tradition, too.

Jane, to her credit, accepted Maura's hand without complaint or reluctance. In fact, she gave a little squeeze back. "These are World Series balls. They've got signatures from players and managers of the winning teams. As you can see, they go back quite a ways - to 1921. Suspiciously _after_ we began our eighty-six year drought," she ended conspiratorially, whispering the last bit to Maura behind her free right hand.

"Are you saying it's some kind of Yankees-related plot?" Maura asked, giggling when Jane only shrugged in response.

"I'm not _not_ saying that," she said. "C'mon, let's check out the bats."

Maura let herself be led across the walkway to an expansive white wall laden with ash and maple bats. "The craftsmanship on these is to die for," she said, leaning over to inspect some of the more recent specimens. "What's the dark, tacky substance on the handle?"

Jane bent forward, too, and pointed to it. "That's pine tar. Batters put it on to improve grip. It's sanctioned, but see how it doesn't go past this point on any of the bats? That's 'cause you gotta make sure it stays below the first eighteen inches. Most guys keep it just right around here."

"Interesting. Does it work?" Maura asked, seemingly unconvinced.

"Sorta, I guess," Jane said. Maura wanted to kiss the pensive curl of Jane's eyebrow, and she had no problem admitting that to herself. "What's nice about it is that if you get it just right, you can have a more fluid grip, because the bat is already stuck to your gloves with the tar. So it makes for an easier swing with more pop."

"I see," Maura replied. They walked into a seating area crowded with people, and though Maura wanted nothing more than to sit Jane down at one of those tables and pick her brain all night, there was more to see.

They looked at stolen bases from the 2004 ALCS, and at jerseys from the 2007 World Series. Apparently, there was this phenomenon called _The Playoffs_ , something like the baseball season on steroids, at least from the way Jane's eyes danced when she described it. She said it was really the only reason they were there, all standing and admiring the history and the grandeur. It was the reason she went to Fenway, the reason the Red Sox played every one of the 162 games as if they were the single most important, the reason, she added quite dramatically, that she got up in the morning. And if Maura stuck around, said Jane, long enough to see _The Playoffs_ andto win a World Series, it'd be the reason she got up in the morning, too.

Maura couldn't wait. When their ten minutes were up, she held Jane's hand all the way to their seats.

* * *

"I want to take it slow tonight," Maura said to Jane, just as the Red Sox had run onto the field to take their defensive positions for the top of the first. She had her brand new scorebook on her lap, over her crossed legs.

Jane nearly spit out her beer. "Huh?" she asked, not really recovering very well. She tried to avoid glancing over at Maura while she used her bottom lip to scrape hoppy Budweiser foam from her top one.

"With scoring. I want to learn the basics. When I was reading about wOBA this afternoon, I realized there were a lot of elementary figures that I did not know. Not a pleasant feeling," Maura said. She scrunched her nose.

Jane finally did look at her, and chuckled. "Well Smartypants, can you give me an example?"

"Sure," Maura was thoughtful. She racked her memory for the best one. "What is on-base percentage? Well, I know what it is now because I googled it, but there were several others that I didn't have time for. Like OPS."

Jane seemed to mull that over. "Ok, I kind of thought this might happen. Here's what we're gonna do - see, last night was like that date where you like someone, and you really click, so you think it's a good idea to fall into bed with them. And it's fun and exciting and stuff, but then you realize after you sleep together that you _really_ like them. _But…_ you know jack shit about them. And you figure out that you should probably get to know them better as a person before you decide to jump headfirst into the physical part."

"I can't relate," Maura said. Jane turned to her, aghast. A foul ball whizzed right by them, about two rows down, fresh off of a Brewer bat. A boy with an oversized outfielder's glove caught it. "I don't think I have ever slowed down a physical relationship because I wanted to get to know someone more personally."

"Ok, well, my point was, we fell straight into bed last night with all that talk about run expectancy, and WAR, and advanced stats. And those are fun, trust me. But that's like… grad school level baseball. Most fans start _like this,_ " Jane replied, pointing to the men under the bright lights with gloves on their hands and hats on their heads. "Just watchin', keepin' a little score, gettin' a feel for the game. Which reminds me: I brought this."

She pulled the personal radio out of their game bag, and then grabbed a brand new pair of earbuds. She plugged them into the radio, already set, of course, to WEEI, and then handed Maura the one for the left ear. She took the one for the right, knowing damn well they would have to lean in closer to make it work.

Maura did it without hesitation, even bumped Jane's shoulder with her own to encourage Jane to put it around the back of her chair. "More fan input?" she asked.

Jane shook her head. "Nope. Play-by-play. I usually listen to it when I come to games by myself," she said. She paused when a man shuffled by them with his hands full of Fenway Franks and a very loaded helmet nacho, as though she were confessing a secret that she did not want him or his dinner to hear. "It's basically like a story told about the game in real time. And they talk about _all_ those basic stats you want to hear about. We can both listen and then you can ask me any questions you have as we go."

"You're a very thorough teacher," Maura commented. When Jane turned to face her, to accept the compliment, their faces were centimeters away. Maura tasted cinnamon gum on the air that she inhaled. "You know exactly when to speed up, and when to slow down. And I don't even have to tell you."

Jane smiled with her lips closed and her dark eyes creased. "Schlubby coach, remember?"

"Maybe. But I like you like this," Maura said, harkening back to their conversation in her front hall that evening, "you look so confident. Like you're in your element." She shifted in her seat just a bit so that she could tug on the front of Jane's hoodie and brush away some imaginary substance just over her stomach.

The feeling of wanting Maura's hands all over her returned to Jane then, slamming into her. There were just a few thumbstrokes across the most sensitive part of her ribs, affectionate and absentminded, and she wanted to whine. She white-knuckle gripped her armrest, determined not to jerk away. "Well, thanks," was all that she could muster, and she cursed herself for it, knowing the moment had passed.

Maura wagged her eyebrows and returned to her scoresheet for the evening, and if she were aware of the effect she'd had on a now-flustered Jane, she didn't show it.

* * *

"Not as fun when we lose, is it?" Jane grumbled as she walked Maura up her Beacon Hill street toward the front door. Maura had an arm looped through hers and searched out the thump of Jane's brachial artery with her thumbpad. Even when the Red Sox fumbled a quality start from one of their best pitchers and lost 4-2, Jane was so alive. She thundered with life under the skin of her inner arm, just under her short sleeve, and Maura tried to remember when Jane's blood had ever pumped with such _passion_. Was it reserved for Fenway? Or was it reserved for her?

"Being with you was just as fun," Maura tried to assuage Jane. "I learned a lot today, and it's better when it's not all sunshine and roses, Jane. More realistic." Jane sighed in response, reigning in her depression as best she could. She failed miserably and Maura laughed at her pouty lip. "Poor baby," she teased, shaking her head as they turned the corner to her courtyard.

"I told you I get grumpy when we shit the bed like that," Jane griped.

Maura had to guffaw out of shock. "Must you be so crass?" she asked.

"I must when we can't beat Randy Wolf! The guy's brother is an umpire, for chrissake. He's not exactly hall of fame material," Jane continued, stopping at Maura's front door and leaning against one of the columns of the porch while Maura searched for her keys.

"Well, maybe one day I'll be able to estimate win/loss probability by knowing an opponent's name, but for now, I'll just have to believe you," she said, patting her pockets. "You have all the keys."

"Oh shit," Jane said, jumping up to attention and removing the backpack from her shoulders. She took out Maura's wallet, keys, and scorekeeping ensemble, keeping everything except the keyring while she waited for Maura to unlock the door.

Maura pushed it open, and then Jane handed her the rest of her things. Out of habit, Maura left the door open and placed the items on her writing desk, only realizing after that Jane hadn't followed.

She stood in the doorway instead, a strained look on her face as though she were resisting an invisible barrier, trying to push her way in, but unable to enter. "Are you staying?" Maura asked, walking back over.

Jane had her arms at her sides and was running her teeth over her lower lip. "I don't wanna impose on you two nights in a row," she said. Her voice fell into the lowest register she had - it sounded placid, but dark. An impossible blend of masculine depth and soft curvature. To Maura it had always signaled a stymying type of chivalry - it was sex on waves, but always came with restraint. She loved it and hated it.

The fact that Jane even spoke that way, however, told Maura that she had also felt what simmered between them this evening. And that made Maura bold. She stepped even closer, met Jane in her restraint, and provided supple affection to contradict it. Her hands slipped beneath Jane's hoodie and the t-shirt under it, palms flat against abdominal muscle and skin, thumbs swiping in a more salacious version of her gesture at their seats. "You wouldn't be. Imposing, I mean."

When Jane's eyes fluttered closed and breath flared out of her nostrils, Maura felt just a _little_ guilty. She wasn't the most socially adept, but she was observant, and perceptive: she knew what Jane would like. Maura had theorized that she would want to be approached gently, be touched like she mattered, like she was valued. Like Maura appreciated her hard work and noticed the weight she carried on her shoulders every day. And clearly, Jane very much liked to be touched like that, because she fell forward, almost imperceptibly, into it. It was manipulative on Maura's part, but in the best way.

"That's good to know," said Jane, still in her very attractive _I'm-being-good_ voice, and she moved her head just ever so slightly to the right when Maura tried to kiss her. "But I'm still gonna go, ok?"

Maura's lips landed softly against her left cheek, just below her eye. She lingered there, gave one, two, three more kisses, and Jane didn't pull away. In fact, when Maura scratched lightly at her sides in slow, long strokes, Jane became heavy in her hands. "Why?" Maura finally whispered.

The question slithered up into Jane's nose, sweet notes of mint and ballpark peanuts like an elixir created just to reel her in. She nearly faltered, almost ran right into the wall of desire waiting for her to break it down. "Because. I wanna take it slow tonight, too."

Maura cursed her earlier statement, wishing she had never said it out loud. She dragged her fingertips from Jane's belly and summoned up resolve she didn't want to use. Immediately she missed the heat of their connectedness. "Ok."

"Ok," Jane affirmed. When Maura cast her gaze downward, however, she bent down to catch it. "Hey. Keep… doing what you're doing, a'right? Because it's workin'," she said, and then Maura blushed. "But I think you knew that," Jane added. She shook her head when she figured that part out. _Of course Maura knew what she was doing._

"I… may have made an empirical leap based on previous observations, and then based my behavior on that," Maura said, crossing her arms and leaning on the inside of the same door space as Jane.

"That sounds an awful lot like guessing, kid. And I thought you didn't do guessing," Jane answered in retort.

"Hmm. Maybe. But let's just say that you make me want to try new things," Maura countered.

"Like what?" Jane couldn't help herself - she knocked her forehead to Maura's and held her stare.

"Oh no. You already rejected me this evening. You're going to have to wait to find out," whispered Maura. She patted Jane's neck with her open palm. "Good night, Detective. Call me when you get home."

She all but forced Jane away from the threshold and shut the door. She chuckled to herself when she thought she heard a breathy _fuck_ from the the other side, drifting the same way Jane would be walking back to her car.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Statcast is a real, cool thing that MLB Network does for all the games that they broadcast and it started in 2015. I have no idea if they were developing it already in 2011, but hey, we're gonna pretend. Thank you for all the love and support on this fic! It's been amazing, because baseball is so near and dear to my heart.

"Oh come on! Hit the fuckin' cutoff man!" Frankie Rizzoli wore his ancient navy blue Red Sox tee even though it had a small hole on the shoulder, because it was good luck. He cussed in the way only a pitcher could, his anger drawn from personal experiences on the mound - feeling expressly let down by his outfielder sailing a throw over everyone's head as the runner chugged home instead of firing straight to the middle infielder.

"I don't know, brother, Bourn is fast; he may have beaten a throw anyway," Jane said. They sat with Tommy on her apartment couch, bowls of chips and other assorted snacks long forgotten with the advent of the first pitch.

Frankie tugged at his handsome hair. "The Astros are like 29 and 56, Janie. I swear to god, if we lose to them…" he trailed off in threat.

Tommy, next to him in his own Sox shirt, this one distressed red and brand new, laughed out loud. "It's the bottom of the first, Frankie. Jesus. And we're up by two!"

It was true. Red Sox were up 3-1 on July 2nd, already mashing at Minute Maid Park, home of the Houston Astros. Jane curled her socked feet on the edge of her coffee table as she watched her brothers rib each other about wins and losses and the merits of remaining calm in the earliest innings of the game.

She shoved her unruly hair back with her right hand, watching Andrew Miller settle in and get Jason Michaels to hit into a double play. "See that, Frankie? No big. He pitched out of it."

Frankie's moodiness lifted despite his best attempts to keep it around. "Yeah, we'll see if it holds," he grumbled, but he smiled as he did.

Jane shook her head and pulled from her beer. The simultaneous knock on her door made her sputter and dribble some onto her chin. "Shit," she whispered, wiping her face with the back of her hand.

"Janie if that's pizza, I'll do your laundry for a week," Tommy said with his eyes still on the screen.

"Well damn, I hope it's pizza, too, then," she replied, hopping over his knees on her way to the door.

When she opened it, however, Maura stood on the other side, hair a little askew and cheeks flushed. "I was trying to get off the phone with the governor for an hour! How late am I?"

Jane stepped aside so that Maura could hustle over to the couch. "Not very. Just missed the first. The second hasn't even started, actually," she called out. Maura took the open seat next to Frankie and tucked her now bare feet under her legs, eyes on Jane's TV, so Jane took an extra minute to travel over to the kitchen for a couple of Peronis. Then she stood behind the couch and held an ice cold bottle over Maura's shoulder.

Maura took it. "Thank you," she said, looking behind her shoulder at Jane pointedly. Her voice was soft, easy.

Jane smirked in response and went to the armchair just to Maura's right. Maura deflated, having hoped that Jane would try to squeeze in close on the couch, or even better, kick one of her brothers off so that she could sit next to her.

Nothing had happened between them in the two weeks since their last in person game, though Maura had desperately wanted it to. Well, she supposed she shouldn't say _nothing_. They had watched all eleven games between then and now, and they had watched them together. Sometimes, Maura would get caught up at work, staying late to finish a report, sometimes Jane would be on a stakeout or poring over her latest case file, and this meant that they would meet up for the DVRed version - but they always did. Sometimes they would sit on Maura's couch until one or two in the morning, pausing and rewinding, cursing and cheering. Sometimes they would watch here, at Jane's place, and Jane would pull down her Baseball Prospectus handbooks and show Maura just how detailed sabermetric profiles on players could be.

But they hadn't kissed, and that's what Maura wanted. She hadn't pushed it, let Jane set the pace since that night Maura had almost invited her into bed, but half a month later and the pace was _crawling_.

And now, Jane was about ten feet away in a chair that would not reasonably fit Maura in it, not without causing a stir amongst the other Rizzoli siblings in the room. So, she fought as best she could to banish thoughts of Jane's prominent triceps and long legs, and sipped her beer.

"So, Maura," Frankie started. He nudged her shoulder with his own. "I heard Janie's brought you over to the dark side, huh?"

She tried valiantly to understand him by the wiggle of his eyebrow or the smile on his lips, but his words escaped her anyway, too foreign to piece together his meaning. "I'm sorry?"

"The Sox," he replied, chuckling. "You like baseball now?"

"Oh! Yes," she said, and couldn't dilute the joy contoured around her words as she spoke them. Quite truly, baseball made her _happy_. "I… I can say there's truly nothing like it. I really like everything about it so far."

"Well, you're amongst friends, then," he said, and then he patted her knee with respect. "Got a favorite player yet?"

She thought about it. "Not really. I've been learning about baseball through numbers, and I guess it's been harder to get emotionally attached to players that way."

"That's a very _you_ way to go about it," Frankie said good-naturedly. He let the conversation lie when a Red Sox player whacked a ball to left field.

"Shit, he almost gave up on that!" Tommy suddenly burst out, standing on his feet and bending the upper half of his body toward the TV in disbelief. In fact, one of the Houston outfielders had stumbled all the way back on a Marco Scutaro fly ball and almost dropped it onto the wet dirt of the warning track where his unsteady feet danced as it fell into his outstretched glove. If he had dropped it, Scutaro probably would have run for days, maybe even had an inside-the-park home run, and Tommy mourned all that could have been.

"That seemed… highly irregular," Maura commented as she watched the replay of the nearly missed catch.

Jane took this time to make her presence known. She planted her socks on the floor and put her elbows on her knees. "Happens sometimes. The sun can get in a guy's eyes-"

"Or he gets a bad read off the bat," Tommy interjected helpfully.

"A bad read?" asked Maura.

"Yeah," Frankie supplied. "So, outfielders keep their eyes on the at-bat because if you pay close enough attention-"

"And practice enough-" Jane added seamlessly.

"Yeah, and take a lot of fly balls, the way the ball comes at you off the bat can tell you where it's goin'," said Frankie.

"A ball hit more towards the handle can slice and die quickly, meaning you have to sprint in to try to catch it before it falls. A ball barrelled up, right on the sweet, fat part of the bat, can mean that it's going to go far - and you better start backpedalling. But everything happens so fast - take one step in when you needed to go out-" explained Jane.

"Or one step out when you needed to come in," Tommy said.

"And you've lost control of the play," Maura surmised. "Simple physics." She looked between the three siblings as they all looked at her, and her stomach dropped pleasantly when she realized that all four of them were flushed. Jane's apartment wasn't the most ventilated in the summertime, but she knew that wasn't why. Frankie's hand was still on her, Tommy had moved from his couch cushion to the coffee table just in front of them, and Jane, oh Jane. Jane was in her chair, one hand holding her beer and the other one running through her hair and showing off the attractive vein on the meaty part of her forearm.

Maura had never had such a seamless conversation before. Such a passionate one, where she didn't have to wrack her brain for the social mores on what not to say, or what not to do. She didn't have to watch herself for tangential comments, she didn't have to worry about getting too close or staying too far, because the Rizzolis did all the moving for her. What had just transpired was some instinctual psychophysiological symphony between them, running only on baseball. She licked her lips at the familial implications of it all.

"Yeah, I guess so," said Tommy, smiling at Maura and breaking her reverie. "Everything's goin' so fast at this level, though, it's basically all runnin' on muscle memory. There are bound to be mistakes when it's that quick."

"That's true," Frankie conceded, "a lot of it is instinct built up over years and years of play."

"Because of the speed at which all plays are occurring. Such that hitting a baseball going 96 miles per hour should be nearly impossible," she added. She was talking to men about sports, keeping up with them about sports. She practically had _brothers_.

"Well," Jane interjected quietly, shuffling her head and wincing as if to say _that's not the whole story_.

"Ok, here we go," Tommy said, rolling his eyes, but smiling at his big sister, "with Sir Isaac Newton over here."

"I'm not sayin' you're wrong, but you can plan for that. And you can quantify it," Jane said behind a shrug. She was quieter as she pulled from her drink, and Maura knew that timidity. The timidity of sharing information that people maybe didn't want to hear, or maybe wouldn't understand.

That Jane knew something so complicated and mathematical, even if she hadn't yet heard what it was, turned her on. "Do tell," Maura purred.

Jane's eyes narrowed and she bared her teeth in a dangerous little grin. Apparently, a little goading, a little sexuality, was all she needed to restore her usually boundless confidence. She set her beer down with authority on a coaster. "So… it's a little hush-hush, but MLB Network is workin' on this thing _tentatively_ called Statcast."

Frankie sighed theatrically. "Really, Jane?"

"Shut up, Frankie!" Jane said, blushing a little bit. "You remember Vinny Toscano? He's settin' it up at Fenway now, trying to work out the bugs and see if it'll work on an all-MLB scale."

"Tiny Vinny from down the street? Real math whiz? Yeah I remember him," Frankie took the bait. "What's he doin', now?"

"Statcast is gonna be this league-wide thing that'll display stats to viewers at home in real time on TV," Jane explained. They all paused to watch a ball hit by Jacoby Ellsbury make its way towards first, but the first baseman turned a slick play to tag him out. Then she continued. "And Vinny says one of the stats that they plan on displaying is _route efficiency._ A number that will tell us exactly how wonky a guy's route to the ball might be. Relative to a straight line of course."

Maura gasped and then bit her lip. "So then you would take his deviation from the straight line, and divide the distance he traveled to the ball by a straight-line distance between where he was when the ball was struck to where he ended up catching the ball," she said breathlessly.

Jane pointed at her with enthusiasm. "Yes! And then you get a percentage of how efficient he was, basically. So even though everything is happening very quickly, theoretically," Jane paused for effect and Maura leaned over the armrest at the word _theoretically_ , "you should be able to use route efficiency to see what your habits are on certain balls and then try to correct course and run in as straight a line as you can."

"Or use route efficiencies over a large sample size to determine the defensive worth of a potential trade target or free agent signing," Maura extrapolated and Jane groaned. It was subtle, but her eyes were dark and there was definitely a rumble coming from her throat.

"Jesus," Frankie said, after what felt like eternities of silence and staring between Jane and Maura. "You two wanna get a room? Tommy and I can leave."

"Excuse me?" Jane snapped out of the trance first and then stood up to grab her third beer. She glared at both of her brothers as they glared playfully back.

"You guys are nerds, is what he means," Tommy said, laughing as he ran his fingers once through his dark brown hair.

Maura cursed their presence just as much as she reveled in it. "You two don't find this aspect of the game, I don't know… _riveting_?" she asked.

Frankie shrugged as commercials droned softly in the background. "Nah. We're more old school, I guess. We just watch the game for the drama, to see the guys leave it all on the field. Stats are Janie's thing. _Boring_ ," he said, ending with a fake snore.

Tommy smirked at his big brother's antics. "Yeah, I'm not really into it. Math was never my strong suit in school. But hey, I'm glad Jane finally has someone, you know? To talk to about this stuff. I think she was ready to blow a gasket before you came around, havin' to keep it all inside around us neanderthals."

"Hey, I realize this shit is… niche," said Jane, back to blushing when she returned from her refrigerator. This time, to Maura's delight, she did come back to the couch. "But if Maura understands everything I'm sayin', who cares?" She perched herself on the armrest right next to Maura, and all four of them soon lost themselves in pitch counts and batted balls again, until the Red Sox won, 10-4.

* * *

"Thanks for comin'," said Jane, when her brothers had gone and she stood in her doorway seeing Maura out. It was late, almost midnight, because the four of them had gotten into a spirited debate about batting orders and lost track of time. "They really like you."

"Your brothers?" asked Maura, still in her work clothes, a tasteful sleeveless white blouse and navy slacks that were now wrinkled from all her couch-sitting. She could not look more different than Jane, in joggers and a Red Sox tee that must have been at least ten years old.

Jane nodded. "Especially Tommy. Be careful around him; he gets ideas," she warned, her voice sounding teasing, but her eyes were serious.

Maura shook her head. "I like them a lot, too. But I really, _really_ like you," she admitted, vulnerable in her stance just outside the door, knowing that Jane could shut it in her face at any moment if she said the wrong thing, did the wrong thing.

"I really like you, too," Jane said. She smiled, leaned on the threshold and stuffed her hands in her pockets. She looked confident, relaxed, and ready. She approached Maura then, taking advantage of their nearly equal height with Maura's heels, and knocked their foreheads together.

Maura couldn't help biting her lower lip in anticipation. "You do, huh?"

"Yeah," Jane answered, and they shared air. Her hands stayed in her pockets, and Maura kept one of hers on her purse, but then the other sat on Jane's side, just above her hip.

"Invite me back in, then," Maura demanded. "I'd like to spend the night with you."

Jane shook her head and Maura felt it on her own. "No," Jane answered with finality. Maura felt pulses of rejection around her heart. "But my family's renting a house for fourth of July. Ma's cookin', there'll be a pool, and the view of the fireworks can't be beat. You should come with me. I want you there with me."

The rejection left, but in its place, longing and frustration took hold. "Alright," Maura whispered. She didn't dare be the first to break their bond.

Jane did it instead by wrapping one arm around Maura's shoulders. "Good. I'll pick you up around three or four."

As soon as she had hugged Maura, Jane was back on her side of the door. "I'll see you then," Maura said, chancing one last whole-body sweep of Jane with her eyes.

"See you then. Bye," said Jane, winking and then watching Maura walk away, dumbfounded, toward the stairs that would lead her to her car.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, on this chapter's date in history (July 4th, 2011), the Red Sox actually lose - but that didn't fit the narrative, so I just changed it. LOL. Also, we find out why Jane has been a little gun-shy. Only two chapters and an epilogue left!

Maura had just received Jane's text - _outside and hungry, so hurry it up_ \- and gave herself another once-over in the mirror by her bedroom door. For all the waiting that Jane made Maura do the past fortnight or so, she could stand a little waiting herself, especially if this outfit was going to be her payoff.

It wasn't that Maura chose this swimwear cover for Jane _per se_ , it was more that it was brand new and also happened to be sheer. And if that helped her achieve her goal of sealing the deal this evening, then all the better. She tugged at the midsection of her v-neck, batwing dress, making sure that it showed off enough of the two-piece underneath without giving away the whole thing. Satisfied with the salacious whisper of black underneath, how it framed her toned midsection, and with the sun-kissed skin of her knees, she threw on her Wayfarers. Her sun hat went on last, and then she descended the stairs two at a time. She took one last glance behind, and yes indeed, her ass did round in a nice little bubble against white linen. _Perfect_.

Her Gucci overnight bag waited for her by the door, and in one fluid motion, she scooped it into her hand and pushed her way into her courtyard. She congratulated herself on that choice, too, Italian designer for a quick getaway with her Italians. When had she started thinking of them that way, with a possessive in front? Ultimately it didn't matter when she walked out to the street toward Jane's car, when Jane caught sight of Maura and her jaw quite literally dropped open - they belonged to her, especially this one. The pleasant warmth of the sun on Maura's forearms only augmented the feeling.

She threw her weekender and her purse in the backseat and then crawled into the passenger side with a cocky grin. She leaned onto the console and kissed Jane's forehead, just above the RayBans identical to her own. "Hi. Close your mouth, it's unbecoming," she said before leaning back into her seat.

"I was gonna say that you sure took your sweet time, but if that's what you look like when you do, I don't even care," Jane's dark voice was back, and Maura loved how it sounded, heavy against the light blast of the A/C.

"You said swimwear," Maura said with airy laughter.

"I did. But uh, Jesus." Jane, sweet Jane, tried to reply. However, she mostly sputtered and gripped the steering wheel with both hands blanching at ten and two. She looked down at herself as they made their way onto the main drag, in super short running shorts, a Dustin Pedroia name/number shirt, and some beat up New Balance runners. Her sunglasses cost more than the rest of her outfit combined.

"In your element, remember?" Maura warned against Jane's insecurities before she even got the chance to voice them. "Don't base what you think I would like on how I look, either. That's flawed logic."

"You like softball chic, huh?" Jane teased, but her shoulders relaxed. Maura noticed the fine hairs just above her first knuckles, catching light at the top of the steering wheel now, as she hung forward to watch traffic pass before taking her turn at their stop sign.

"On you I do," Maura replied with a content sigh. She leaned back and closed her eyes, reveling in the smell of Tropicana and lavender that permeated the car. "Isn't that what counts? Where are we going?"

"Oh it counts," Jane assured her, moving her right arm to rest casually against the console. "So, my mother's best friend, Carla Talucci, has decided to rent out her Ma's old house for a pretty penny. Usually the fourth is one of her most lucrative days of the year, but I convinced her that maybe our family needed it a little bit more than some tourists. With Pop leaving and all."

"And she let you have it?" Maura asked, touched by the community aspect of it all. She doubted she could even remember her childhood neighbors. These ones actually took care of each other.

"I paid her," Jane answered, smiling to herself while she tapped on her cupholder. "She gave me the family discount. It's quaint, Maura, not a big place, and it hasn't been updated since the late 90s. But the fireworks go off only a few blocks away and it's got a pool. I'm glad you're coming."

"I'm glad, too," Maura said, and they enjoyed the ensuing moment of soft silence between them. Then she put her hand on top of Jane's, resting it there, scratching lightly at the fingers under hers. It was slow, disarming. "I'm glad you want to spend time with me. Even if I'm not sure what you're feeling."

Jane's face turned serious, but she flexed her fingers upward to show Maura she approved of the affection being given to her. They pulled into the residential neighborhood just off of Dorchester Street, and she cut the engine when they made it into the side driveway. "I feel like summer came on real strong this year," she said, turning her head towards Maura. "And like, you know when the radio is playing all new songs and you don't know any of the words, but you're so happy you just smile and hum along? That's how I feel, too."

Maura frowned, but dipped her fingertips into the webbing of Jane's still-open hand. She liked how the knuckles felt as she slid over them. "No, I don't know that feeling. I'm sorry. I didn't listen to much more than classical or talk radio growing up."

Jane laughed, and pulled Maura's hand up on top of her own to kiss the back of it. "What I mean is that I don't really know what I'm doing or how things are usually supposed to go, but I sure am happy it's happening. Now let's go in. I got beers and a stereo in the trunk."

Maura agreed, and realized that it was the first time she had felt Jane's lips on her.

* * *

After they had heaved the case of Sam Adams to the backyard where Frankie's brand new cooler awaited them, Jane had scooped Maura up, swimsuit cover and all, and ran her bridal style right into the pool. Tommy had laughed, citing Maura's uptight sensibilities and the way her sunglasses floated in the bright blue water as especially funny, and she had threatened to push him in, too, when she got out, if he hadn't already obviously taken a dip.

Jane, wet and swimming back towards her, had looked a little contrite, if mostly amused, and said, _if it makes you feel better, I'll carry you out, too,_ to which Maura had replied, _only if it's all the way to my bedroom where I can change_. She hadn't actually expected to be gathered back into Jane's arms and carried from the steps of the pool to the sliding glass door where Frankie stood and opened it with an exaggerated doorman's stance, and then past Angela in the kitchen, down the hall to the first bedroom.

But instead of having to use her sleepwear in place of her ruined cover, Jane reached into her own duffle bag and handed her an oversized Patriots t-shirt and another pair of running shorts. _Sorry about your sandals,_ Jane had said, _but I don't have another pair of those. My feet are like two sizes bigger than yours, so the Nikes won't fit, either. But maybe you can help Ma out while they dry and I get dressed._

So, Maura accepted that compromise, and stood in the kitchen now, falling into easy conversation with Angela as they prepared dinner. "You looked so beautiful when you walked in, Maura. I'm sorry my knuckle-dragging children have you in old football gear and barefoot in a stranger's home," said Angela, chuckling despite herself as she waved the knife she was holding up and down in Maura's direction.

"Thank you," Maura replied. She chopped cauliflower, celery, and carrots dutifully. "And I don't mind. I'm learning to appreciate their… spontaneity."

Angela laughed openly now and checked her shoulder against Maura's. "I guess you could call it that. Jane was pretty spontaneous in surprising me with this little staycation," she said, eyes back on the artichoke she was slicing. "We could just be doing this at your place, but I appreciate the gesture. I think she feels bad because her father's been such an asshole."

Maura stopped. "Why would she feel bad?"

"Why does Jane ever feel bad, honey? She always finds some miniscule thing to let guilt twist her up in knots. This time I think it's because she was his favorite. Still is. She thinks that'll reflect poorly on her, that it'll mean that she's like him. Really it just reflects poorly on him, that he would give her up just to chase some tail," Angela explained, rolling her eyes at her husband's stupidity.

Epiphany struck Maura, then, pulled her from the present and sent her wandering through all her recent memories made with Jane. Where Jane had been so cautious, so restrained with her. _Her father_. Jane did not want to be her father - did not want to make it seem like all she was doing was chasing tail, to use Angela's phrase. The thought softened her and guilt for her forwardness consumed her at once, until Jane herself came walking down the hall and through the living room into the kitchen. "Hey Ma," she greeted, with a smirk. She was wearing only a sports bra and some shorts, both black, and she wedged herself between the two women to give her mother a rare kiss to the head.

But Angela pulled away before it could be realized. "You apologize to her yet?"

Jane stopped, pulled her head back in indignant shock. "For what?"

"For draggin' her in that pool, Jane! That's what! And why are you in your underwear?" Angela interrogated, but she pressed her cheek toward her daughter, signalling that she was ready for her kiss now that she'd said her peace.

Jane obliged with a frown, putting her palm on the back of her mother's very dry and very tie-dye blue and white swimsuit overshirt. "I was just havin' fun," she said, and when Angela glared, she turned to Maura. "I was just havin' fun. Maura, c'mon, tell her!"

Maura chuckled. "At my expense," she said, Jane's presence easing her queasy feeling just a bit. "Tell her why you're in your underwear and I'll consider that your penance."

"I am in _sportswear_ because I gave Maura my pajamas. As an _apology_ , especially since I didn't plan on going in the pool myself. Hence no bathing suit," Jane whined, wiggling her finger in her ear vigorously to dislodge some of the water in it. "Happy?" she asked, facing Maura, but mainly asking her mother, who smacked the bare skin of her shoulder blade with a wooden spoon. "Ow!" Jane yelped.

"Maura's classy, Jane. Way too classy for us. You three are gonna scare her away with all your roughhousing and then where am I gonna live, huh?"

Jane rolled her eyes and Maura rubbed a thumb over the smooth tan on her bicep. For this entire conversation, they stood mere inches away, the three of them, and Maura finally found herself unable to resist the touch, or her next statement. "I am growing to love your impulsivity, even if it's at the expense of my well-being. Or gets me wet," she said to Jane.

Jane choked on the olive she had just popped into her mouth.

"Jane, are you ok? Oh my god!" Angela smacked against Jane's back for real now, guiding her away from the countertops and toward the small kitchen table with a window that viewed the backyard. Maura leapt into action and reached Jane just as she finished her coughing fit.

"Really, Ma, the abuse is not helping," Jane said, extra raspy, rubbing at the back of her neck where a slap had landed extra high. Her own hand was quickly replaced by Maura's, who patted her more for comfort than for medical reasons.

"I'm sorry," Maura said after she had pulled Jane to the side, "I didn't mean that how it sounded." Her apology was sincere, but she sounded amused. She was smiling.

"Mmhmm," Jane said, unconvinced. "Go chop vegetables and leave me to recover in peace." That she admitted to being affected by it at all seemed like progress, so Maura heeded her instructions.

"I know it's not very American, but I always do _muffuletta_ on the fourth," Angela said when Maura made her way back to the countertops. "My cousin Maria grew up in New Orleans and brought some over one summer, and we've been crazy for it ever since."

"I disagree - there is nothing more American than a _muffuletta_!" Maura said brightly, jumping at the chance to share some history. "It originated among Italian workers in New Orleans as a quick and accessible lunch, and has been a staple ever since."

"Can't go wrong with olive salad and cold cuts," Jane chimed in, apparently all recovered and inspecting the meats laid out on the counter. She reached in the jar for another olive and popped it into her mouth, as though her whole moment of distress never happened. Her other hand found its way to the small of Maura's back, caressing on top of worn, loose fabric as she decided on a piece of cheese to steal. Maura gulped - she had told herself she needed to resist for Jane's comfort, but she wasn't sure how long she could if Jane were touching her that way.

"Go wrangle up your brothers," Angela ordered Jane, smiling privately. "We'll eat outside."

* * *

Jane stretched her legs in one of the adirondack chairs in the Talucci backyard, bare heels cradled by the fresh cut grass. An empty plate once filled with ambrosia salad laid tucked under her, a bunched napkin on top of it, and she held a bottle of Sam Adams on her thigh. The condensation felt good against her skin in the twilight warmth, and the fact that it was her fifth accentuated that good feeling. She was flanked by Frankie on one side, just as sleepy in no shirt and still-drying swim trunks, and Maura on the other, feet tucked under her with her scorebook on her lap.

WEEI radio played in the background, and Joe Castiglione relayed the bad news - Red Sox were down seven to nothing going into the bottom of the fifth against the Blue Jays. "I don't know why you insist on playing that," Angela commented. She held Tommy's hand in her own, and their chairs completed the organic half-circle the Rizzolis and Maura had formed to prepare for the fireworks. "You're just torturing yourselves."

Tommy laughed and opened his eyes. "You're just sayin' that because you hate baseball, Ma," he said, content to make small conversation with her over the stereo, even if it meant he missed a play or two. "It ain't over til it's over."

"They're not gonna win!" Angela insisted.

This did not go over well with her other children. "You don't know that!" both Jane and Frankie shouted, sitting up in their chairs.

"Well, actually, it's statistically unlikely that they will come back," Maura said.

Jane's mouth gaped, a physical manifestation of her shock at being _well-actuallyed_ by her best friend. "You don't _know_ that," she said quietly, mostly to Maura. "It's possible."

Maura considered it, tapped her pencil on her chin. "I suppose it's _possible_ , yes. But-"

"Maura, you're breakin' hearts, here," Frankie interrupted her with puppy-dog eyes, but then all of them perked up when they heard that JD Drew singled to center field with two out.

"Ok, shh," Jane leaned over the other side of her chair to turn up the volume.

"You better turn that off when the fireworks start, Janie," Angela said, rolling her eyes at the four of them. Did her children _really_ believe their team had a chance?

"Shh!" They all said to her at once, as soon as they heard that Marco Scutaro walked.

"Hear that, Ma? Two men on," Tommy said, feeling a little bad for her. If a rally was coming, she'd lost her kids for at least another inning. "That's a fightin' chance."

Then they were silent - hopeful worshippers at the FM altar. _Up comes Ellsbury, 1 for 2 with a single in the first, with two men on and two out,_ Castiglione narrated, and his storytelling, crisp and to the point, had them all on edge.

 _Morrow settles in, his team up big, and takes the sign from Molina - first pitch is a ball, just outside._ Frankie clapped with gusto, and Jane punched her palm with a clenched-teeth grunt of satisfaction. Maura winked at Tommy when he looked at her and shook his head at his siblings.

 _Four-seamer is a little high, but it gets called a strike, count is now even at 1-1._ As high as the excitement climbed for the first pitch, it plummeted at the second. Jane's head went into her hands, and Frankie let out a herculean sigh that competed with the crackle of the airwaves.

The agony and the ecstasy continued with the next pitch, another ball.

 _2-1 to Ellsbury, 2 outs fifth inning, 7-0 Jays, runners on first and second, here's the offering…_ and then, on the next pitch, Castiglione exploded. _Tight line drive to right center field! It's got a chance! And it bangs around the bullpen fence, there goes Drew! In comes Scutaro! Ellsbury has a stand up triple and it's 7-2 Blue Jays!_

Jane waved her fists in the air in stifled emotion, and then she bit her fist to keep from yelling. The Jays were still up by five, after all. Maura scribbled hurriedly, but she couldn't help her megawatt smile, and flushed cheeks. Frankie was the most expressive in the way that he jumped up and screamed. Morrow threw a wild pitch that sailed past the catcher's head with Dustin Pedroia at bat, and Ellsbury came in from third to score. _7-3_.

"Ok, ok, ok, ok," Jane said wildly, waving her brothers down with her hands. "Cool it. Pedey's gotta get on."

Pedey did get on, and Adrian Gonzalez ended up doubling him in before the inning ended. _7-4._ "Now we're in business!" Frankie shouted. "C'mon, Ma! How can you not get pumped about that?"

"You forget all the trouble I went through with you and your elbow injury, mister," Angela pursed her lips at him and he hung his head, having to concede the point.

Jane shook her head at the memory and leaned back in her seat. She turned her neck toward Maura and they shared a private smirk between the two of them. Maura liked the way that the alcohol danced in Jane's eyes, making her loose, bold. "What's gonna be more exciting - the fireworks, or when we win?"

" _When_ we win, huh? You're very sure," Maura scolded, but there was no bite behind it. The sun had set completely, and Jane looked so vibrant against the floodlight and the night sky. It was invigorating and Maura needed to touch. She reached for Jane's hand in the space between them, and held it in her own.

"You gotta admit, it's looking much more possible now than before this inning," Jane said as she wagged her eyebrows.

Maura bit her lip. "Mmm. I sure hope so," she said in a voice deeper than she intended, but Jane responded with passion. She leaned forward, eyes predatory and mouth slightly open, teeth exposed in the artificial light just behind them.

Maura leaned in just the same, ready for what was about to be given, but then the first red fireworks of Dorchester's quintessential New England show clapped between them, claiming their attention and driving them apart.

* * *

Angela had _ooh'ed_ and _ahh'ed_ at the pyrotechnics display, and the Red Sox had won, 9-7, with an epic comeback in the bottom of the 6th that held for the rest of the game. That victory made even jaded Jane and Frankie holler with delight at the striking succession of blues, greens, and whites against the black summer sky.

When it ended and food trash was picked up, the boys migrated into the kitchen to help their mother clean, leaving Jane and Maura in the backyard with an unfinished case of beer and disorganized lawn furniture to rearrange. "Told ya we'd pull it off," said Jane, trash bag in her hand for recyclables.

Maura stood from her current task of stacking chairs and wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist. "You did," she said breathlessly. The rest of her statement died in her throat when she saw Jane approaching her. She stopped only when their fronts touched.

"Thanks for coming," Jane whispered against her mouth, her stare confident and so very close to Maura's own. "This was the best fourth I've had in years."

Maura pressed a hand on Jane's chest to stop the kiss she had wanted for weeks. It nearly killed her. "I need to shower," she said shyly, looking down at herself. "I smell like chlorine."

Jane scoffed. "That's stupid," she said, and leaned in again, this time wrapping an arm around Maura's waist.

Maura used her head to pull back. "Are you sure about this? I want you to be sure about this," she said seriously.

Jane scrunched up her face. "You don't want me to?"

"God no, that's not what I meant," Maura whispered.

It was all the assurance that Jane needed, and she brought their lips together. Maura's eyes slipped closed instantly at the feeling of scarred palms on the bare skin of her lower back, running under her t-shirt. Nevermind how Jane added the tiniest, heavy suck against her lower lip, just enough for her to moan, to open, and then Jane's tongue dropped inside.

She held Jane's face against her fingers, her thumbs swiping under brown eyes, but she could barely register any other sensations except for the wet one between her teeth. That was, until she felt one of those strong hands dipping below the waistband of her borrowed shorts to cup her behind - then she reluctantly pulled them apart just as she felt a twin heartbeat begin between her legs.

Jane shuddered. "Too fast?" she asked, her voice small - there was happiness in it, but disappointment, too.

"Not for me," Maura answered, pulling Jane back into the embrace she had started to retreat from. Gallant Jane, though dissatisfied, was trying to give her the space she thought Maura needed. "But I think it might be for you."

Jane stiffened until Maura kissed her shoulder softly. "Can I be the judge of that?"

"I don't want you to do something you regret, just because you're feeling good," Maura said. She squeezed Jane's midsection, the distinct sensation of loss already taking hold. She laid her head on the shoulder she had just kissed and sighed. "I don't want you to feel guilty, because you're not like your father. But you need to be ready to accept that."

"It's not the beer making me feel good, Maura. It's you," Jane tried to assure her, but Maura kept thinking about her conversation with Angela in the kitchen. Jane got the feeling that _something_ had happened. But she wasn't ready for accusations against Maura or her mother to derail this moment, either. "And I know I'm not like him. And you're not like those girls he's sleeping with, either. It just took me a little while to get here, is all." It was a half lie she told to keep Maura wrapped around her.

"Thank you. But I still think that we should quit while we're ahead tonight, while things are good. Which means that I should go," Maura said. She kissed Jane's lips again, shortly and without time for Jane to take hold and deepen it.

"I thought you were stayin' over?" Jane asked desperately.

"I've got an early morning. I'll call a cab," Maura replied. When she saw Jane's crestfallen features, her heart plummeted. "I'm not saying no, Jane. I'm just saying not tonight."

"Can we at least talk about it?" Jane was almost begging. "I feel like this decision is being made without me."

Maura shook her head, and kissed Jane's shoulder one last time. "Call me in the morning? We can talk about it then. And if you still feel like this… we can make some plans," she said, walking back towards the sliding glass door. She huffed at the turn of events, when just this afternoon, she wanted nothing more than to fall into bed with the woman behind her. Now she realized that they both deserved more than that.

"I'm still gonna feel this way," Jane said to her back, feet rooted to the ground. She was angry, but she was also determined. "So have your phone close by."

It was Maura's turn to shudder.


	8. Chapter 8

" _Carla told me you wouldn't let her just give you the rental for tonight," Angela was waiting at the table by the time Jane walked back into the Talucci kitchen from her sulking outside._

" _It's the most popular rental day of the summer, Ma. I couldn't just cheat her," Jane said quietly, grumpily. She latched the sliding door and intended to walk right past._

" _Come sit down, please," Angela said, sounding like she was asking, but Jane knew she couldn't refuse. Not if she didn't want a screaming match with her mother._

" _What, Ma," she replied, figuring that if she couldn't walk away, she could at least be annoyed by it._

" _You're a good person, Janie," Angela said. "I had a lot of fun tonight. I really needed the distraction. So, thank you."_

 _Jane half-smiled then, unable to help it. "You're welcome. You deserve it, you know. You_ don't _deserve all the shit's that happened to you over the past few months."_

_Angela ignored her daughter's curse because it felt true to the moment, to her sentiment. "No one does," she said. "I still have no idea what's going on with your father."_

" _Me either," answered Jane, and she blushed. "I never would have thought that he…" suddenly, she couldn't find the words to talk about what he had done. All that was left was the anger and all those memories of when he had held her hand as he walked her tiny frame down the cement steps of the Fenway bleachers, on so many nights like the one they were having now._

" _Could have left us? I know. Even when things were bad, I never guessed. The man that stepped up when you two were in the hospital, even when we were shouting at each other… I didn't think he would have done this. But he already was," Angela sighed, resigned to it. "You want coffee?" she asked, looking down at her own mug. "You need coffee. You're still drunk. Let me get you some."_

" _I'm not drunk!" Jane snapped. Angela whipped around, already having risen to fill another cup from the pot on the counter. Jane saw the incredulity, the scolding to come, and sighed. "Ma, I'm sorry. That wasn't about you. I shouldn't have yelled."_

_Angela pursed her lips in recognition. "You wanna tell me why Maura left early?" she asked, setting a steaming cup of coffee in front of Jane, black with two teaspoons of sugar, just like she liked it._

_Jane laid her elbows on the tabletop and tucked one of her hands inward to scratch her exposed and healing scar. "Not really," she grumbled. She closed her eyes in approval when she took her first sip._

" _I think you should," Angela said simply. She watched Jane fidget in the low light of the ceiling fan above them, all the rest of the lights in the living space turned off. It resembled the thousands of conversations they had in their own kitchen, in much the same ambience, when she and Frank were still together and Jane would come home after pulling late shifts as a beat cop. Angela would set a cup of hot drink in front of Jane, and then get to extracting all kinds of information that Jane thought she'd never divulge. "I thought she was having a good time with us. With you."_

" _Me too," Jane said. Half of her, in her annoyance, wanted to throw Maura under the bus to her mother, to indulge in a little pettiness to make herself feel better. But, the other half just wanted Maura here, and that half won out. "She was. I know she was. She was just lookin' out for me."_

" _How so?" Angela responded softly. She moved from the seat across from Jane to the seat next to her, and rubbed her neck the way she had so many times before._

" _She uh," Jane hesitated. She thought for a moment about how her catholic mother might respond to the news that she was pursuing a woman, but with Angela's hand on her and clear insight about at least part of the situation, she decided she was safe. "She just wanted to make sure that I… I wanted her. For real. And not just because I was buzzed and it was a hot summer night and she has a nice ass."_

_Angela laughed openly and that caused Jane to chuckle, too. "I guess it is pretty nice. It's probably all the yoga."_

" _Probably," Jane said. "She wanted to make sure that I wasn't gonna let Pop's mistakes keep me from her, too. I tried to tell her that it wasn't the same, that I wasn't worried that I was like him. Not with her. But I think she wanted to give me a night to think about it, now that it was out in the open."_

_Angela gulped. "Oh. Oh, Jane. I think I might have-"_

" _Might have what?" Jane raised her curled eyebrow. "Ma? What?"_

" _I might have given her the idea that you felt like that," Angela confessed. "I might have told her that you were afraid of that. Of being like him."_

_Jane wanted to scream, she really did. She wanted to get angry at her mother, to blame her. But Angela was right. At least partly so. "I was. Unconsciously, maybe. For a little while. I don't like feeling like I don't get a choice, Ma. And that's what it felt like tonight - like you and her left me without a choice."_

* * *

Jane wiggled her knee incessantly under her desk, to the point where Frost threw a pencil at her. "Would you stop? You're vibrating so much my coffee's splashing everywhere," he said when she looked up at him.

"Shut up, it is not," she growled. She pecked at her keyboard, the strokes loud and defiant against the quiet chatter of the homicide bullpen. Every few seconds, her eyes would drift to her cellphone's screen, which never lit up.

"You mind sharin' with the class why you're in such a foul mood?" asked Frost. He leaned forward on his forearms and stared at Jane pointedly. They looked almost identical, both in pinstriped white button-ups and black slacks. The only difference was his tie where her shirt was open at the first three buttons, white tanktop exposed.

"I'm just anxious to finish up this paperwork, is all," Jane said, not looking at him, but rather at her computer screen.

"No, that's not all," Frost pushed. He tossed another writing utensil in her direction to make her look him in his light-brown eyes. "You've been stewing since you clocked in. It is now 1:43 PM. That's now six and a half hours of stewing, Jane. What the hell."

She checked her phone again, this time jabbing the home screen, huffing when it showed no notifications. "Not any of your business," she said to her partner.

"It is when you're icing me so far out I feel like I'm down the street and not two feet away from you," Frost said, rerouting, changing tactics, knowing she would struggle to resist his softness. "This is worse than the time Maura tried dating her killer ex-boyfriend."

Jane turned bright red. "Yeah, well, you're right. It _is_ worse than that. She told me to call her this morning and I have. Like eight times. She hasn't answered once."

Frost rubbed his thumb and forefinger over his freshly shaved chin. "I mean the answer to that is easy, right?"

Jane perked up. "It is, huh? Enlighten me, Yoda," she snarked.

He snorted, half-laughing at her joke, half-scoffing at her irritability. "Well yeah. She works in the same goddamn building, Jane. Just go talk to her in person."

Jane looked at him as if she truly had not considered that option. "I'll be back," she said, wheeling her chair back with force before shooting up and stomping over to the elevator.

Frost shook his head as he watched her jam the down button with her finger. _Way worse._

* * *

Jane did not go down to the morgue. Instead, she made her way to the BPD lobby, past the front desk man who barked at her to time out with her badge, and into the oppressive midday sun. She dropped her body into her illegally parked car just outside the steps, movements still a little labored from her recovery, and switched the radio station from rock to WEEI.

The drive from headquarters to the Fenway neighborhood was two miles and took about ten minutes without rush hour traffic. Her A/C had finally been fixed, and so though her mood was sour from Maura's silence, she couldn't help but smile when there was cold air on her face and telltale green and brick came into view.

Fenway Park.

Jane must have visited hundreds of times, and still, the rumble of happiness it put low in her gut never diminished. She chewed her gum in thought and a little bit of nervousness when she realized that's how she felt whenever she walked into Maura's office, too. Or her home. Or any room she was in, really. _Shit._

She parked the cruiser on Van Ness, illegally again of course, and flipped her aviators from the top of her head to her nose. She metronomed her hips in that hitch that was so quintessentially her, with her badge and gun alternating the high ground. The young woman at the Fenway ticket window noticed.

"Hi! Welcome to Fenway Park. How can I help you?" the woman asked as soon as Jane approached. Her voice was distorted by the microphone system nestled in the glass, but she still sounded perky, alert. She swiveled on her padded stool and faced the window, and her dark blue, official-issue Red Sox polo gave her an air of affability and authority.

"I need tickets for tonight's game," Jane said, hands on her belt. She leaned her torso back to get a better look at the plaque to her left, which detailed seating areas and their tiers.

"Excellent! Where would you like to sit?" the woman began typing away at her computer while Jane tapped her chin.

"You still got deck tables?" Jane asked, wincing behind her glasses and hoping for a positive answer. She knew the gamble she was taking by asking for highly coveted seats the day of the game. They'd either be out, or they'd cost a small fortune. Her only hope was that the Sox were playing the Blue Jays - a division rival, but a Canadian team and not really a contender.

"We have two, and you're in luck - they're both in the diamond tier. Row one."

Jane started to sweat - excellent seats. Diamond tier also meant a pretty penny. "How much?"

"One-fifty apiece," said the woman. She ran her hand through her straightened brown hair, french press nails clicking on the surface of her desk when she brought them back down. She spotted Jane's nervousness, and then her badge. "But… we can give you our law enforcement discount, which would be twenty percent off. That would bring them down to one-twenty before tax, officer."

Jane was so relieved she didn't even have the heart to tell the ticket specialist she was actually _Detective_. "Sounds great. I need two," she said, her voice thick with stifled victory.

"Perfect! Two diamond tier Budweiser deck seats. You'll be in section T111, row one. These come with a twenty-five dollar beer credit and access to the deck elevator, which you can access from Gate C over-"

"On Landsdowne, got it," Jane finished for her. She pulled her wallet out of her pocket and handed over her bank card.

The woman took it and completed the transaction, giving Jane her receipt and two crisp, clean-edged, glossy tickets for the night's game, Red Sox versus Blue Jays, 7:10 start time. Jane wiped the sweat from her palms onto her black slacks on her way back to the car.

* * *

Maura pulled on the baseball stitch for the accidental drowning that had come to her table early this morning. A healthy young man, white, tall, dark haired and well-muscled; he had gotten dangerously drunk on the fourth, and passed out in his family's swimming pool during their blowout of a holiday celebration. No one had noticed him until it was too late, and he was pronounced at the hospital. A tragedy.

And yet, she couldn't help but be reminded of the dip she had taken with Jane the afternoon before, how hard and safe Jane's grip was when she had scooped Maura up and deposited the both of them in the deep end of the Talucci pool. Truly disrespectful thoughts, sinful and sensual when she should have been somber. Of course, it never altered the quality of her work, but she confused herself when she thought about the kiss she and Jane had shared, only for her to have broken it and put a cleft between them.

Jane had been sure.

She'd communicated it in the way she licked the back of Maura's teeth on her way out, the way she dropped her hips forward and in, the way her long and warm hand had squeezed Maura's backside, not a barrier between them. And yet, Maura placed a boundary anyway, stopping them and pulling them apart. But, when Jane respected the boundary, waited until the morning to call, Maura retreated. The first couple of times, she could justify: she was cutting open the man in front of her. Calls three through eight? That had been running. Ignoring. Faced with exactly what she wanted, she filled herself with doubt. Would Jane still want her after she had left yesterday evening? Had Jane actually called to yell at her? Did she have the gumption to risk her best friend and one of the only intimate human connections she had for romance? If Jane gave her baseball, gave her passion, gave her orgasms, and then decided there was better out there than Maura, would Maura _survive_?

She didn't have any more time to wonder, because the doors to the crime lab _thwacked_ open and Maura would know that stomp anywhere. Jane had come. Maura steeled herself into a semblance of detachedness, of professionalism, when Jane invaded the autopsy suite.

"I called you, just like you asked," Jane said, coming in hot, all bravado and confrontation, "but you didn't pick up."

"I was doing an autopsy," said Maura, as if she hadn't answered hundreds of Jane's calls during autopsies.

"So?" Jane smelled blood in the water. "When has that stopped you before?" She softened at the sight of Maura, in scrubs and her hair pulled back by a clip, perfectly styled.

"Jane, I-" she began, her back still to Jane.

"Turn around," ordered Jane, "look at me." Maura exhaled noisily, and removed her nitrile gloves, tossing them onto the tray nearby before complying. "You wanted this. Do you still want this?"

"Yes, I-"

Jane cut her off again. "Because that's not really the signals you're sending. I did what you asked, Maura," she whined, dissolving into a pout that Maura couldn't help but reach out to hold in her hands.

She spent a few silent moments studying microexpressions, running her thumbs over cheeks, a nose bridge, a philtrum. "I think I panicked," she said, the breath of her words a fog against Jane's lips.

"I know you're scared," Jane said. She broke their entanglement to sigh, and then to wheel over one of Maura's stools. They needed some space. So, she sat on the lip of it and tapped her boots against the tile. "I'm scared, too. And you know damn well I don't like to talk about my feelings, probably less than you do."

Maura smiled, and ducked her head as she leaned against the autopsy table. She crossed her arms, but they were loose and she looked more relaxed by the second. "That's true. You hate talking about your feelings."

Jane raised her eyebrows in agreement. "But you know what we _do_ like to talk about?"

"What's that?"

"Baseball. So let's go watch the Sox try to take the series and then maybe we can go from there, ok?" Jane offered.

Maura pushed off the table, unable to ignore Jane's pull, especially after that declaration. How could she resist Fenway? "You got tickets?"

"I sure did. Deck tickets. They're table seats and they come with beer credits. But that's not the best part about them - the best part is the view of the entire park," Jane said when Maura stepped in between her spread legs and pulled the tickets out of her shirt pocket to inspect them.

"Like a date," Maura said, returning the tickets once she had finished.

It took everything in Jane not to reach out and touch. Her hands stayed on her thighs. "Yeah, like a date. Come with me?"

"Ok," Maura agreed, and she reached out for Jane instead, their stalemate broken. She put her hand on Jane's shoulder, palm rubbing flat and broad strokes at the tension there, swooping down across her upper back, finally landing at her neck. Jane closed her eyes at the pressure and how good it felt when Maura's thumb pressed against her hairline, swiping slowly. "I still like you very much, you know," said Maura.

"I know," answered Jane. She was pushed toward Maura's chest until she laid her head there. "And you gotta stop touching me how I like if we still wanna take it slow," she grumbled.

Maura chuckled softly. "Do we? Want to take it slow?" she asked, looking down at the crown of Jane's head, admiring the contrast of her pale hand wound up in black locks of hair. "You can't fault me for knowing you."

"No, but I can fault you for using that knowledge to make me pliant after you spent all morning ignoring me," Jane said, and Maura heard the hurt as loudly as she heard the teasing. She was relieved when Jane didn't pull away.

"You're right. And I'm sorry. It wasn't fair of me," she replied, "to not take your calls when I asked for them. Good thing you came down here and set me straight."

Jane turned her face into black scrub top fabric and made a show of exhaling. "I guess I can forgive you," she said, all muffled. Then she pulled her head back to look up into Maura's eyes. "Can I pick you up? Or do you want to meet there?"

Maura pretended to weigh her options, but then a broad smile took over her features. "Pick me up."


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter before the epilogue! I have no idea if Statcast set up shop at Fenway, but I imagine that they were there at least at some point before 2015, so we're rolling with it. The press boxes at Fenway are really a one of a kind experience, and if you get the chance to tour the park, I recommend it because the views will take your breath away.
> 
> This has been the funnest thing I've written in a long time. I'm glad so many of you have enjoyed it, too. Hopefully I've converted at least a few of you to my baseball religion! LOL.

Maura opened her door and frowned as she looked at Jane. "Should I have dressed up?"

Jane had a navy road alternate jersey over her button up, bright red letters spelling BOSTON across her chest, and she was still in slacks. Her gun and badge even still held their places on her hips. "No, I got caught up with something at the station. Good thing I keep a jersey in my locker for just such occasions, huh?" she said cheekily, winking at Maura, who was in her home jersey and jeans- at least her Louboutins were fancy. "Can I lock this up?" Jane asked, already moving into the house and removing her firearm.

"Of course," said Maura, still at the front door. She turned to watch Jane fiddle with the lock on the writing desk. "Are you coming back here?"

"If you'll have me," Jane said. Something she again planned on impulse, and suddenly her confidence wavered. "If not, I'll get it when I drop you off."

Maura closed the door and went over to her. "No no. I want you," she said, and when Jane smirked, she clarified. "To come." That was worse, and Jane's eyebrows tried to find her hairline. "To come back here. After the game."

"Ok then, it's settled," said Jane, at least on her way to recovery from her near heart attack. "Shall we?"

"Lead the way," Maura responded. "No filthy backpack, hmm?"

Jane held open the front door while Maura picked up her purse from the hall table. "Nope. We get to order food and drinks where we're sitting. No need for any of the extras."

Maura stood in the doorway, her fingertips on Jane's chin, her eyes soft with mirth. "No portable radio? No scorebook?"

Jane shook her head. "Like a date, remember? We're each other's in-game entertainment." She shut the door behind them and locked it once Maura made her way out into the courtyard.

They ambled toward Jane's car, the heat from the day finally starting to melt off in the early evening. Maura's block bustled with people heading towards the park for a stroll, or walking home after a long day at work. She and Jane blended in seamlessly, with their few steps in concert even given Jane's longer legs. Jane opened the passenger side door for her when they reached the Civic on the street, and she slipped in after dragging fingertips down the soft material on Jane's left shoulder. "So, I looked up Brett Cecil and Jon Lester right after you left this afternoon," she said when Jane turned the key in the ignition.

Jane gulped and accidentally revved the engine. "Oh? Anything you'd like to share?"

"Well… last time we went to the park, we talked about win/loss probability based on starting pitcher profiles…" Maura replied coyly, looking out the window, but hooking Jane's right pinky finger with her left pointer as they shared the center console. "I would imagine conventionally, most people would base their predictions on ERA and number of pitcher wins."

"Mmm," Jane played along, eyes unreadable behind her sunglasses as they made their way toward the Back Bay. "But you're not most people."

"I am not," said Maura, "and neither are you. Someone like you or me would base their prediction on, fielding independent pitching, maybe. And Cecil's 5.10 FIP is awful, while Jon Lester's 3.83 FIP is above league average. Therefore, I'd say we have a fair chance of winning, at least while those two are facing each other."

Her marriage of sabermetric prowess and good, old-fashioned Boston fanaticism made Jane sweat, and Maura knew it. FIP? Referring to the Sox as 'we'? She might as well have lifted her top. "Save the stats talk for the park or I'm gonna have to turn this car around right now. And I'm gonna be real sad if I bought these expensive-ass tickets for nothing," Jane grumbled, but Maura saw the smirk playing at the corner of her mouth.

"Hmm. Don't you think it'd be worth it, in its own way, if we forgot the game and rolled around my bed instead?"

"In its own way," Jane repeated, a little dumbfounded. "Yeah."

"But you want to see the FIP in action," Maura conceded. Her head lolled on the headrest to watch Jane's features flicker in the late-day sun. Jane looked back at her, and smiled bashfully.

"If we take the series and I'm there to see it, I'll be a happy camper," she said in a croaky murmur.

"You're very passionate," Maura said. "It's why we're in this situation in the first place, so I can abide it."

"What situation's that?" Jane asked, both hands now on the wheel as she slowed for the throngs of gamegoers around them.

"The one where I would like very much to sleep with you," Maura said without shame or pretense. "It's because of your conviction. Well, partly. That was the catalyst, at least." They approached the Landsdowne garage, and she searched for her wallet to pay the fee. Jane reached out and stopped her wordlessly, and flashed her badge at the attendant. He waved her through.

"Consider this whole outing some kind of sabermetric foreplay, then," Jane snarked, but her hand on Maura's knee, flat and broad and sure, communicated agreement, if not collusion.

"Quickly becoming my favorite kind," responded Maura as she and Jane then stepped out of the car, the Citgo sign towering high in the background behind them. They joined hands when Jane engaged the lock on her car and led them toward Gate C.

* * *

"So? Did I lie about the views?" Jane asked Maura as they lounged at their open air table seats, right across from each other. She looked over the lip of her beer before tossing back another sip.

Maura had her arms crossed on the tabletop as she surveyed the majesty just ahead of them. Their club level height provided a bird's eye view of the grass of Fenway, and they were high enough that they could see every play unfold, from pitch to put-out. The sunset brushed strokes of orange and blue across the early July sky, providing dark contrast to the pearly-white uniforms of JD Drew, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Darnell McDonald in the outfield. In short, she felt as though she and Jane hovered above the scene, watching this game from some heavenly station. "You most certainly did not," she whispered in reply, crossing her legs for some sort of steadiness.

"Maura," Jane asked from center-right.

Maura continued to watch Jose Bautista take ball one from Jon Lester in the top of the fourth inning. "Yes?"

"Look at me, huh?"

Maura turned, a little embarrassed by her distraction. But the _field of play_. Perfection. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I've been up here one time - got tickets for winning some commendation when I was still in DCU. So, I understand," Jane teased, but there was softness behind it. "But I think we should talk about what happened. What's happening, you know?"

"I think you're right," Maura said. Her attraction to Jane may have been the only subject more enticing to her at the moment than watching Lester's second pitch, a four-seam fastball, drop in for strike one.

Jane leaned in on her own elbows and winked. "So, you like me?"

Maura chuckled and rolled her eyes. "I think I've made that pretty clear. I think you like me, too." Jane shrugged in practiced nonchalance and took another swig of Budweiser, and Maura scoffed. "You don't get to pretend to be cool about it when you had your hand down my pants last night."

Jane blushed scarlet and choked on her sip. She recovered just enough to save the streak that had dribbled down her chin. "Jesus, Maura," she said, looking around.

"Serves you right," said Maura. She traced the condensation on her bottle and winked.

"Maybe so," Jane replied quietly. "I meant what I said last night. If this is something that we do, I'm not gonna let my deadbeat dad come between us. I don't see you as some bimbo I picked up outside Nick's Pizza."

"I'd hope not," Maura laughed. She commiserated, thinking of her own biological father, and really her own adoptive father. She saw Jane's determination, the crinkle of seriousness around her eyes, and reached out. "And I trust you. Yesterday was… I'm sorry about it. I'm sure you feel like I was giving such mixed signals."

"Kinda," Jane said, "it was a little bit of whiplash - I thought you were the one chasing me." Her honesty slithered down Maura's spine until it landed at the top of her hips. It should have doused her with contrition, but it was refreshing and it was real. Jane was showing her the vulnerability of the truth.

"I understand that," Maura said. "I just wanted so badly for you to be sure. I was so worried that you weren't, that I think I gave you space you didn't ask for. I missed all you were trying to tell me."

Jane watched the game out of the corner of her eye. She sat up a little bit straighter when she saw Bautista take another strike. _2-2._ "I'm uh, I'm ready. Because I _like_ you." She was the one to wink this time, and then Maura faltered.

Her falter was much more graceful, however, and it resulted in her bowed head and rosy cheeks. "What you're saying is that you don't want to share baseball Maura with anyone," she finally replied.

"I don't wanna share any kind of Maura with anybody, ever, is what I'm sayin'," Jane promised, and it sounded kind of like a threat. Maura quite liked it.

"Well, you're off to a great start. As far as first dates go, I think this is the best I've had," she said, satisfied with Jane's answer and her assuredness. It blossomed warmth and possession all through her thorax. Happiness hormones flooded her cortices and she couldn't help the goofy smile she sent Jane's way.

Jane returned it in kind. "I'd say this is our third date," she said. The batter swung and missed at the last pitch, and Jane pumped her fist. "And now that we've made sure Joey Bats won't do any damage, this date is about to get a whole lot better. Ready?"

She stood just as the others around her were getting up for refills and half-inning promenades around the deck, and held out her hand for Maura to take.

Maura scrutinized her lithe body in all dark clothes, the only light on her the white of her rolled sleeves. Her olive dusk forearm poured out of one of them, the sheen of her silver watch bright against the bruised skyline, and it called to Maura despite her confusion. "Where are we going? A drink on the deck?"

Jane shook her head. "We're gonna do that when we get back," she said mysteriously, "but first, the elevator." She took Maura up a few steps and toward the green elevator with a giant Budweiser B on the door, firing off a few text messages while she waited for the car to receive them. Then she pulled the chain with her badge on it from under her jersey to rest on her chest. "We need the club level, and this is the only elevator that'll take us there."

"What's on the club level? I thought those were only box seats," Maura asked.

"There are fan box suites, yeah. But there's also press boxes for beat writers, and suites for MLB big wigs when they come do business at Fenway. And you can't forget the broadcast booths," as Jane finished, the elevator dinged, and they stepped in. She told the attendant inside to take them to the club level, and he eyed her badge before complying.

"Where are we going?" Maura whispered, her hand wrapped around Jane's bicep as she moved close to her ear.

"You'll see," Jane answered. They arrived one floor below, and she nodded to the attendant. "Thanks, man."

He nodded back. Then, they were on a completely new concourse. Jane held open the glass door, and suddenly, the hallway resembled an office more than a ballpark. Maura stepped in, and waited for Jane's hand in hers.

They walked that way, from their starting position on the right field side all the way to what must have been on the third base line, Jane in navy blue and Maura in home whites, standing just outside a metal door with a temporary placard that said _MLB Network - Statcast._ Jane knocked and Maura ran hot. "Vinny Toscano?" she asked.

Jane winked at her again. "Vinny Toscano," she confirmed. And then, none other than the man in question opened the door.

"Janie Rizzoli," he said with a broad grin. He was shorter than her, especially when she wore her work boots. He stood maybe 5'8", and he was thin as a rail. His blue oxford shirtsleeves were rolled up halfway to his elbow, just like hers, and he held his arms open for her after tugging on his belt and brushing a few sandwich crumbs away from his front.

Jane obliged and they embraced. It was short, but hearty, and they clapped each other heavily on the back before they broke apart. Maura thought they could have been related then, Vinny having dark, close cropped hair and thick eyebrows. He looked at her through very expensive-looking Gucci glasses frames and smiled professionally. "Vinny, this is Dr. Maura Isles," said Jane. Vinny held out his hand, and Maura took it. "And, she is dying to hear _all_ about your little project here."

Vinny nodded, and stepped out of the way so that they could move into the room. Large expanses of glass at the front of it provided even more spectacular views than the Budweiser deck: they could see Darnell McDonald's back as he waited on the delivery from Brett Cecil, and when they looked beyond him, the field expanded into a fan of natural greens and browns prettier than anything else Boston could offer. _This_ was their city's crown jewel, and it gleamed brightest from the press box.

There were three or four other men in front of double monitored computers, typing away, wheeling back and forth between their work and the live action. Large computer servers whirred away behind them and to the left. "So, obviously, Statcast is like an open secret here. Pretty hush-hush for most people, but the network is interested in doing some black-ops type advertising to drum up publicity and hype."

"Is that why you told me about it?" Jane asked as he led them to his own workspace.

"No, I told you because of the countless times you fished me out of a trashcan in high school," Vinny said, not looking back at them as he typed his password into his PC.

Jane smiled privately and Maura tugged on her sleeve. She looked at her with admiration, a mushy type of happiness, and Jane rolled her eyes. "Well, Rory Graham and his boys were real assholes. But you and I turned out alright."

"Sure did," Vinny agreed, and that was that. "So come in close, friends," he waved a hand on either side of his head and beckoned them forward. They did, and on his screen was a simulcast of the game.

In the top left corner, as the ball left McDonald's bat and screamed for the green monster, a black block of text appeared, and when Corey Patterson of the Blue Jays ran it down, an uneventful catch, numbers flashed in that box.

Maura gasped. "So his route efficiency displays in broadcast," she said, tapping her fingers to her lower lip. "And the catch probability?"

"How probable it is that a catch will be made on a ball batted out that way, factoring in how far the fielder had to go, how much time he had to get there, his route, and wall positioning. We're testing it out here because of the left field wall," said Vinny.

Jane smirked when Maura leaned in closer to him and inspected the number on the screen. "Like a stress test for the statistic," said Maura. "Fascinating."

"Exactly like that," Vinny agreed.

"And that was routine. Catch probability was seventy percent, even with a wall like the Green Monster," she added. "Though I would imagine that you would have to adjust the calculation for going back on the ball as opposed to coming in, as that involves a certain level of difficulty."

"You wanna work for us?" joked Vinny, who then looked back at Jane.

"Can't have her, Vinny," said Jane. "She's already too good at her day job. What I wanna know is when are we gonna see this on our TVs?"

"Hard to say. We're still workin' out the bugs on catch probabilities under forty percent. Computer starts doin' weird things when you gotta make an all-star catch," he said. "And that's just what I'm working on - outfield stuff. We've got people all over the league working on pretty much every metric you can think of."

"Well, I can't wait. You know how amazing this would be? Advanced stats in real time? It'd be like proselytizing to the masses," said Jane, whistling when the screen flashed with the stats for another catch in right field.

"That's the plan," Vinny said, smiling proudly and standing back up straight to admire his handiwork.

Maura threaded her fingers through Jane's and squeezed, hard. When Jane looked over, she didn't look back, but she was biting her lip, raking it softly with her teeth. Jane coughed and straightened herself. "Well, this was… this was somethin'."

"Amazing, Vinny. I really can't wait," Maura said to him.

"Yeah. Same. But we should get out of your hair," Jane added.

"You sure you don't wanna stick around?" he asked. "I bet we could rustle up a couple of extra chairs for a few innings."

His offer was sweet, but he was already typing away again, and Jane had other plans. "Nah, but thanks. We've got a drink date over on the deck. See you around."

* * *

"That was so _enthralling,_ Jane," said Maura as they exited the elevator, back near the deck's expansive television screens and full service bar. She hadn't let Jane go since they said their goodbyes to Vinny and walked silently back to the concourse.

"Pretty cool, huh? My kids are gonna have a totally different mindset about the game than I did growing up," Jane commented, seemingly without hesitation or much thought. "Catch probability, WAR, wOBA, it's all gonna be second nature."

Maura thought _a lot_ about the implications, especially considering their discussion at their seats. She pondered them all the way through Jane buying more drinks at the bar, and then placing them at the stand-up tables that overlooked the whole stadium. "I haven't… I've never…"

Jane chuckled. "Thought stats could be so fun? I know that's not true."

"Not what I was going to say," Maura said, narrowing her eyes and smacking Jane playfully.

"Ow," Jane swiped back half-heartedly with the hand that wasn't holding her beer. "Sorry. What wereyou gonna say?"

"I've never been with someone who thinks so, too. As much as I do," Maura replied softly.

"Well just think. If you haven't, then I _really_ haven't. Sounds like we've hit the jackpot with each other," Jane said.

Maura looked around, Fenway below them and around them, people wearing their joy out loud as they laughed and reminisced, drinks in hand, baseball in their veins. The nighttime purples and blues brought Red Sox uniforms out in even starker relief than before, daring her _not_ to root for them, to choose them, to keep her eyes trained on them. The only thing that Fenway, that the Boston atmosphere, did not bank on, however, was Jane's statuesque profile as she sipped her beer. Was Jane's strong hands against the cool glass of her bottle. Was Jane's long legs spread open just enough to look dangerous. Maura focused all her attention there, and decided then that Jane was right: they had been incredibly lucky.

* * *

The Red Sox won their game against the Blue Jays by the score of 3 to 2. Jane had stopped drinking after their rendezvous at the bar, but she still walked like she was happily drunk, all on victory. They had left through Gate B for nostalgia's sake, taking the elevator down to the main concourse and touring the food stands as they closed for the night.

Then they emptied out onto Yawkey Way with countless other fans, optimism for a 51-35 team riding high, vaporizing into the night as it exited Fenway Park proper. Jane and Maura walked in silence until they reached the front of the Team Store just across the street, and Maura stopped them abruptly. "Wait," she ordered, turning so that she faced her companion, slipping a hand under Jane's jersey and stroking the middle of her spine with her thumb.

Jane ran hot under the contact, but managed to keep her good humor. "What? You want a souvenir?" she asked playfully, nodding her head to the giant sales floor behind ground to ceiling glass windows, with all manner of merchandise inside. A few stragglers were finishing up their orders at the cash registers.

"Of sorts," Maura played along. "I want you to let me try again. I messed up last night."

"Try what?"

A kiss banished any confusion that may have lingered for Jane. There she stood, right in front of the name/number shirts just on the other side of the window, with Maura's arms now wrapped around her shoulders.

It sprung her into action. Her hands went to Maura's face, their lips rowing forcefully in concert, a wet congregation born of being on the same page, of finally accepted attraction. Jane tasted the mint that Maura had consumed just minutes before and wondered if she had planned this Yawkey Way entanglement, and then decided she didn't care. Maura's mouth was warm, soft, and tasted like Fenway in mid-summer.

A taste she had long since acquired, and would never tire of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. The Red Sox won like 90 games in 2011 and still finished third in the division. WTF. The Rays erased a 9 game deficit in the standings in September and overtook the Sox, who did not even make the playoffs after losing to the Orioles on the last day of the season. THE ORIOLES. The Sox didn't make the playoffs and they won 90 games! I'm still shook.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't write a Rizzoli and Isles Fenway fic and not include this scenario. Also, how fitting is it that this story ends on the first day of Spring Training games for both the Cactus and Grapefruit leagues? I'm actually watching the Angels play the Giants as I type this, LOL. Thank you all for your bookmarks, kudos, and comments. Until next time!

_One year later_

Jane wrung her hands in front of Gate C on Landsdowne Street, eyes scanning frantically back and forth. The area had been blocked off and the Red Sox were out of town, but her insecurities about her appearance roared to the fore anyway, even when her curls unfurled down her back and around her head like a crown, and even when her minimal make-up had been artfully applied by someone else. She heard the _click, click_ of a camera lens, getting some candids in before the shoot really started.

Jane _hated_ getting her picture taken. Really, truly hated it. She whined in relief when her brother ran back over from the parking garage. Frankie had a fitted Red Sox cap in his hand, 5950 sticker still on the brim, clearly brand new. He was out of breath and glaring at their kid brother, Tommy, who whistled absentmindedly until he saw Frankie approach.

"Hey!" Tommy exclaimed, "I did leave it in the car! Awesome!"

Frankie handed him the hat and then rolled his eyes. "If you didn't, I woulda made you run all the way to the Team Store to get a new one. I don't even know how I got saddled with gettin' it for you in the first place. Here."

"You offered and I wasn't gonna say no," Tommy commented mostly to himself, and put the 7 3/8 size hat on his head. He bent the brim ever so slightly, and sighed in pleasure at the perfect fit.

"Will you two quit it? The sooner we can get this over with, the better," griped Jane, turning towards the both of them. She blushed when Frankie took her face in his two bearish hands and smirked.

"Hey, play nice, ok? Do you know how lucky you are that Maura said yes to this at all?" He chided her kindly, patting her cheeks with his open palms.

"I-"

He sensed her getting ready to rebut, so he interrupted her. "You're nervous. And you hate takin' pictures. I get that. I do, too. But you look great."

Jane rolled her eyes, but she was touched. Her voice cracked when she chuckled. "Yeah, yeah. You're obligated to say that - you're my brother."

"I'm serious. You look like it's your signin' day,'' Frankie said. He moved his hands to the crisp new Red Sox home white jersey on her shoulders, smoothing the front and fiddling with the top button, left open just under the collar of a starched white oxford shirt. "Tommy! Doesn't she look like a million bucks?"

Tommy trotted over from where he had been texting in his headwear and red Boston home alternate jersey. "You look like your signin' bonus was a million bucks," he said, a compliment wrapped in a joke, somehow in tune with his siblings no matter how far apart they were. "We look like the DiMaggio brothers."

They really did, with their handsome Italian features and jerseys over their pressed shirts. Frankie was in the navy blue road alternate, and he completed the picture of the three of them, all in tailored, slim black slacks and black wingtip shoes. "I'm Joe, of course," he said, and his siblings stared at him aghast.

"Uh, no. _I'm Joe_ ," Jane argued. She crossed her arms. "You're Dom."

"How're you Joe if I'm the one who got the closest to the bigs?" Frankie shot back. He stepped forward and put his finger in Jane's shoulder.

"Hey, that would make me Vince," Tommy said indignantly. "Vince was the worst DiMaggio!"

Frankie and Jane turned towards him. "Oh c'mon, Tom. He was a two-time all-star," Jane threw her hands out, "we can't all be hall of farmers."

"I swear-"

"Hey, Rizzolis? Let's get this started, shall we? We're about to be encroaching on the ceremony, here, and Fenway is very unforgiving about time limits," the photographer, a redheaded woman in her late thirties, interrupted Frankie before it could get ugly. She held up her camera at them and they broke it up.

Frankie moved to the sidewalk just in front of the closed green gate, grabbing a pitcher's glove and a Rawlings maple bat with a black handle and a wood-stained barrel. He handed that to Jane. "Here we go, a'right? Ain't nothin' we can't get through together."

"Yeah," Jane exhaled. Her voice was shaky and quiet. "Yeah. Let's do it."

He gave her one last pat on the shoulder for posterity, and then they turned toward the camera, Landsdowne Gate C behind them, brick sprawling left to right in the shot. Jane stood in the middle, one hand in her pocket and the other leaning on the knob of the bat, looking deceptively confident and loose. Frankie and Tommy stood on either side of her, Frankie with the glove he'd won State Championships with close to his chest, Tommy with his muscular arms crossed and his MLB-issued hat making him look dark, dangerous.

He could only keep up the serious pose for so long, however, and after four clicks of the shutter, he jumped up and hollered triumphantly to anyone who'd listen. "My sister's gettin' married at Fenway!"

* * *

Maura called on all of her home training to school her features into serenity. Make-up had taken longer than advertised, and now she was behind schedule, staring at her silk charmeuse gown with an empire waist instead of standing in it. She'd foregone the twenty foot train because of the dirt at home plate, but still - it was 2PM and she was getting married in _an hour_. She really should be in this dress, and not in the short, white satin robe on her body now.

Not to mention she was still in the box suite-turned-bridal suite on the club level, and she needed to be at the plate in forty-five minutes. She smoothed her fingers over the material on her belly and reminded herself to breathe.

Angela noticed Maura's anxiety despite all of her best intentions. "We're gonna put you in that thing and march you down that concourse, and then all of this will melt away. The stress isn't even gonna be a thought in your mind," she said, standing next to Maura in a tasteful, short-sleeved navy blue dress and heels - those had been the colors they'd chosen for their guests - dark blues, grays, reds - Boston baseball colors. Home whites were reserved for the two getting married. Even Angela had to concede that they all looked good: herself, her sons, her family members, their friends. She didn't like the sport, but her kids really did know how to pay homage to the city, and that she was proud of. She put her hand on Maura's shoulder and squeezed. She was proud of _this,_ too.

"I know," Maura conceded with a heavy sigh, "but I'm definitely feeling it right now." Peace of mind was the price she paid for her hair, pinned back and pulled away from her neck in an elegant updo, and for her face, the natural beauty of it accentuated by the artistry of the make-up technician just leaving the suite.

"I'm sure it doesn't help that Janie runs exclusively on Italian time," Angela teased, and her lips twitched.

Maura's eyes went wide in the mirror that they looked into together.

"Oh honey, I'm just kidding," Angela sputtered, waving the hand that wasn't holding her clutch to her body. "You know I'd kill her if she were late to her own wedding."

"How would you know if she were?" Maura asked, recovering. There was a glint in her eye.

Angela chuckled. "I've been texting Tommy all morning. Surprisingly, he's my most punctual. He also always answers my messages, unlike the other two," she said as she rolled her eyes.

"The opposite of what you'd expect," Maura agreed, laughing lightly, too, in spite of herself. Then she held Angela's gaze in the mirror. "Why aren't you with her?"

"I got shooed away," Angela said at first, letting Maura assume why. When Maura smiled, she elaborated. "Her brothers have her covered. I think I'm needed here more."

Maura looked down at her feet at the statement, because it was true. "Thank you. I don't know what I'd do if… if I had to be up here alone."

"Hey," Angela whispered, turning now so that she could watch Maura directly, and not through a mirror, "she said she's coming? She's coming. I bet she's down there right now, with your father."

Maura wanted it to be true. "I've avoided looking down there because I don't want to be disappointed when I don't see her in the seats." She pointed toward the expansive windows of the box suite that overlooked the field of Fenway down below. The green of the grass stood out against the brilliant blue sky. It was landscaping she had seen, admired, exactly one hundred and sixty two times since her first, either in person or on television, but now it was manicured just for her. For Jane. Even the giant scoreboard displayed the stats leaders for the team thus far in the season, just as she had requested. Nothing but open, unbiased data would do for their big day. "She means well, but… things come up. Often."

Angela leaned against the closest wall and crossed her feet. "Even for her only child's wedding?"

"She had to skip my medical school commencement because of an opening at a gallery in Stockholm," Maura said by way of answer.

"Well…" Angela began, trying very hard to train her face into indifference. She failed miserably. "Well, she hasn't called to cancel, so we're gonna assume that she's on her way, if she's not here already."

"Yes," Maura nodded once to convince herself. Constance Isles was a woman of many talents and many engagements, and that meant heeding the call whenever and wherever it took her. It was how she'd carved out the life for her family that she did. It was also why Maura had felt incredibly lonely as a child. And it was why she feared that her mother might not come today. "To be honest, I can't imagine what she thinks of me getting married _here_. It's not exactly the wedding in the hills of Santorini that I had gushed about as a teenager."

"I don't know why you agreed to this," Angela said theatrically, in order to inject some calm. "I told you you shouldn't have let Jane bully you into it."

Maura saw the ploy for what it was, and was thankful. She laughed. "Oh it was a very mutual decision. So many of our firsts have happened here, and when Jane told me it was the only wedding fantasy she's ever had, I knew it had to be Fenway," she said, nostalgic as she looked away, remembering all the ballpark meant to them. "But… I was not giving up this silk gown," she said, fingering the stitching of the dress ever-so-lightly.

Angela nodded firmly. "It's to die for," she gushed, "and you're gonna be to die for in it. So, let's get it off the hanger and on you - what do you say?"

Maura had to agree. She'd paid even more attention to the shape of her body in the past few months, regimented her diet and exercise within an inch of sanity, to make sure that the gown in front of her fit perfectly. She knew it was vain, but she had _wanted_ it, and so she made sure she got it. "Let's," she said simply.

Angela squealed with delight, and then there was a knock on the door.

* * *

"I think it's cool that you guys decided to walk out together," Frankie commented as he, Jane, and Tommy stood around the Dunkin' Donuts stand just outside the Home Plate seats. The concourse was dull, gray, and dark away from the tunnels, and that comforted Jane, as best as she could be comforted in the scariest moment of her life.

Beyond all the serial murderers, coked out perps, and Sister Winifred in grammar school, this scared her. "Well, our dads, all three of 'em, are deadbeats," she said with venom. It was the only thing keeping her voice even. "And her ma's a flake. So, I told her I'd do it."

Tommy grinned devilishly as he swung his legs from his seated position on the counter. "You're a sap, Jane," he teased, wincing when she punched his knee. "Ow!"

Frankie shook his head. "Like I said, I think it's nice. You're grown-ass adults. No one needs to give you away; you're walkin' into this with clear eyes and clear intentions."

"Thanks, brother," Jane replied. She crossed her arms, trying not to think about the sweat gathering under them. She was nervous, and it was late July in Boston: humidity ravaged the city and air conditioning didn't reach the concourse.

"Yeah," he said. He watched Tommy toss a baseball in the air a few more times, tracked it as it went up, and then down, and then up, and then down, and then he walked over from being in front of his sister to being next to her. They both leaned their behinds on the lip of the counter between two cash registers, and he mimicked her stance. "I'm sorry Pop is such an asshole, Jane. I really am."

Their father was not only not in the park at that moment, but he would not be attending. His excuse was that he couldn't afford the plane ticket from Florida to Boston, and their mother pointed out that such an excuse was entirely possible from what her sources had told her, but really, there were a multitude of other reasons that his children would buy first. Jane suggested that his general homophobia growing up was the culprit, while Tommy was pretty sure he was too ashamed to show his face in front of the family members that would inevitably be here, or maybe too ashamed to show his face to their mother. Frankie had been the most cynical, stating that he was too busy chasing tail in his new town to bother with them anymore.

Whatever it was, he had let his eldest down, and that incensed Frankie the most. Jane had been there for him, for them, when the business was bad and her beat cop salary was barely enough to help with the bills. She had helped them dry Tommy out on many a bender. She had just _stepped up._ And if their father couldn't show his support or his gratitude on this day of all days, then hell. Maybe they didn't need him.

Fenway was theirs now, anyway, at least for today.

* * *

"Mother?" Maura whispered when Constance stepped into the doorway that Angela had opened for her.

She wore a dashing red skirt suit, one that brought out the blue in her eyes and the black of her heels, and Maura knew the outfit was couture, possibly sewn just for her. It was very much Constance in clothes form. And what a relief it was to lay eyes on. "No, no, no darling," Constance said, shuffling over to Maura, waving her kerchief in the direction of her daughter's face, "we _cannot_ ruin the work that's been done."

Maura remembered the very expensive make-up she wore and decided that her mother was right. She took a deep breath. "You're right. You're right. I just didn't know if you were coming, and… it's, it's just so good to see you."

Constance, for all her good nature, had the audacity, the lack of self-awareness, to be shocked. "And miss your wedding? You think too little of me," she said, and they shared two open-air kisses in greeting. "Now, the woman outside has informed me that Fenway Park does not tolerate delays, so we'd better get you dressed."

Maura nodded; it really was time. The two older women in the room set about removing the gown from its place, one holding up the bottom while the other prepared the back, and Maura dropped her robe in the meantime. She held an arm to her bare chest as they guided her in, and then her mother fastened the back closed, taking a moment to place her hands on Maura's shoulder blades in affection. In gravity.

"I wasn't sure how you'd feel about this place," Maura said timidly, sucking in sharp gulps of air to keep from crying while her mother simply touched her. It was a gesture both rare and sought after.

Constance heard the insecurity in the statement and knew that it wasn't truly about Fenway proper. She played dumb, however. "You mean the stadium?"

Maura affirmed it as they shared a glance in the mirror. Green eyes met blue ones before she spoke. "Yes. We never really were a sports family when I was growing up, and I know it's not the most elegant or-"

"Maura," Constance said, grabbing her attention. She crossed her wrists in front of her waist before nodding with authority; the picture of decorum. "This is the one person you've brought home that I have ever wished you'd marry. I wouldn't care if she wanted to do it at the Market Basket down the street. But let's do hurry it along. I don't believe we're going to be allowed to be fashionably late."

* * *

Maura waited for the elevator to take her to the main concourse, just outside of home plate, and her heart jumped with each floor she descended. _Tachycardia, cutis anserine, spiked cortisol_. She catalogued each sign of stress, and breathed them away, mostly because she knew that the person who awaited her on the other side of the elevator doors needed her tranquility more than anyone. So, in a very inelegant swoop, she gathered up the bottom of her dress in order to step over the door track, and when the car _dinged_ her arrival, she exhaled and exited.

For the smallest of moments, she was able to spy Jane uninterrupted, unaware. Jane stood alone, her brothers having headed for the plate to await them both there. She had her hands in her pockets, and her new, very expensive watch glistened with the sunlight that poured in through the tunnel she looked out of. Maura knew exactly what went through her mind - respect for the beauty of Fenway as she had never seen it, from a player's perspective. As much as Jane dreaded the minute all eyes would be on her, she itched to feel the dirt under her feet. Maura itched to see her step out onto the field of play like she owned it.

And then, Jane turned. She must have heard the elevator doors open, or maybe it was the click of heels on the concrete that drew her attention. Her face was blissfully somber for a split second, but then it crumbled; her eyes crinkled and her nose scrunched when she saw the woman who was about to become her wife approach in regal, nearly backless white, tanned shoulders exposed to the baseball air. Jane bit her right index finger at the middle knuckle and sniffled loudly.

Maura ran her hand over the red line of stitching at Jane's collarbone. It circled the neck of her jersey and traveled in straight lines down each side of the front. It was craftsmanship in its own right. "Uh-uh," she whispered. "We still have pictures to take together. If I wasn't allowed to cry when my mother showed up, you are _not_ allowed to cry now."

Jane sob-laughed, and then hiccuped. To her credit, she somehow kept tears from falling. "I can't help it," she said, wringing her hands again, this time between their bodies. "You look…"

"Radiant? Beautiful? Divine?" Maura supplied, raising her eyebrow when Jane trailed off.

"I was gonna say 'way too good for this place,'" Jane admitted with a breathy chuckle, "but those work, too. Christ, I am _so_ nervous, babe."

Maura took pity and placed a hand over Jane's fidgeting, shaking ones. "Who leads the team in OPS+?"

Jane curled her brow in confusion. "What?"

"Who leads the team this season in OPS+?" Maura repeated with a smirk.

"Big Papi," answered Jane automatically. "We suck this year, but Fenway adjustments are pretty favorable to that number."

"And what about FIP? Who leads in FIP?" Maura continued.

Jane felt her body relax as she catalogued all the Sox players in her head. "That would be Scott Atchison. The first two leaders in FIP so far are relievers, and it does not bode well for our starting staff if none of 'em can get below 4."

"True. If our best starter has an ERA over 4 and his FIP follows, we are not statistically likely to attain a .500 record, let alone make it to the playoffs," Maura said, welcoming Jane's collapse into her arms and hands on her hips.

"You're the only one who can make utter hopelessness sound sexy," Jane said against the round of Maura's shoulder, her breath finally even. "Keep talkin' about how dismal our season has been. Give me the excruciating mathematical detail of our eventual last place finish."

"Maybe later," Maura laughed as she squeezed Jane tight against her body. "Are you ready now?"

Jane stood up straight. "As ready as I'll ever be," she said, wiggling her nose and holding her hand out for Maura to take. "That helped. Thank you."

"No problem," said Maura, taking what was offered to her. They walked into the gaping mouth of the tunnel, their faces bathed in daylight, and she tugged at Jane's fingers one last time. Their eyes met just before they started their processional toward the field. "Now let's get married."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. The Red Sox were truly awful in the 2012 season. Little do almost-married Jane and Maura know that they win it all in 2013! Maybe one day I'll revisit them during that historic run.


End file.
